
Gass ElT^ 
Book^. U 3 '? 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



A HISTORY OF 

THE UNITED STATES 

FOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS 



BY 



J. N. LARNED 

Author of'^A History of England for the use of Schools and Academies " 

Editor of '"'' History for Ready Reference and Topical Reading^'' 

arid " The Literature of American History'*'' 




,'\ Vo 



BOSTON, NEW YORK, AND CHICAGO 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

Ws^t KitjerfiiUe presifii, CainbriUffc 



THE LIBRARY •F 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copiei Received 

DEC 21 1903 

Ccpyrtght Entty 

CLASS ^ XXaN«. 

COPY A. 



•I 



COI'YRIGHT IiX)3 BY HOUGHTON, MIFKLIN Jt CO. 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVKD 



• • • • 






PREFACE. 

Whether the writer and the publishers of this book 
are justified or not in adding another to the many com- 
pends of American history already offered to the schools 
is a question to be determined by the judgment of the 
teachers to whom it is submitted. 

The book has been prepared in full accord with the 
views set forth in the report of "The Committee of 
Seven," appointed by the American Historical Asso- 
ciation in 1896, "to consider the subject of history in 
the secondary schools." Its plan assumes — 

1. That American history is taught, or will be taught, 
in most of the secondary schools of the country, at a 
time when the pupils are old enough to learn, and to be 
interested in learning, how the circumstances and con- 
ditions of life as they find it at the present day have 
been brought about, through the working of influences 
and the movement of events in the past. 

2. That those pupils have received in the lower 
schools some acquaintance with the romantic and de- 
lightful but not deeply instructive story of the discovery 
and the first explorations of the New World, and need 
not spend more of actual school-study on that, which is 
only a preface to the life-history of the United States. 

It assumes, too, that most, if not all, of the teachers of 



IV PREFACE. 

American history in secondary schools must be in agree- 
ment with the Committee of Seven upon the funda- 
mental principles of history-teaching, as formulated 
in the committee's report, — especially the following : 
That a "good text-book " is one "in which the sequence 
and relation of events can be made clear ; " that "the 
aim of historical study in the secondary school ... is 
the training of pupils, not so much in the art of histori- 
cal investigation as in that of thinking historically;'' 
that history, presented as it should be, " cultivates the 
judgment by leading the pupil to see the relation between 
cause and effect, as cause and effect appear in human 
affairs," — to see, in other words, "that events do not 
simply succeed each other in time, but that 07ie givws 
ont of another, or rather out of a combination of many 
others ; " that " unrelated facts are of antiquarian rather 
than historical interest," and that there is no time in 
the school course for studying such facts, however inter- 
esting they may be in themselves. 

This book is the product of a careful endeavor to 
realize these sound principles, in a presentation of 
American history to young minds that approach matu- 
rity and begin to be able to see meanings brought to 
light by a right putting of things together. The guid- 
ing aim in preparing it has been to show how continu- 
ous a procession is formed by the events that have real 
importance in American life ; how linked together they 
are by influences that reach from one to another, or by 
forces that work lastingly on successive generations ; 
and by what a plain process of evolution, from its colo- 



PREFACE. V 

nial beginnings, the republic of the United States has 
become what it is. 

In pursuing this aim, the original colonies are treated, 
not separately, in the usual manner, but collectively, 
from the first, as forming already one coherent political 
body, made so superficially by the bond of English gov- 
ernment, and made more substantially so by the Eng- 
lish temper and political habit which were common to 
their people, and which unified them at last. Little 
more than what is common to their history, and what is 
necessary to show and explain in some degree the varia- 
tions of character in them, is touched in the treatment 
of colonial times. 

J Generally, throughout the work, the purpose of the 
writer has led him to be sparing rather than profuse 
in his selection of the things to be told. It has seemed 
to him better to make a free use of the limited space 
in so small a book for the clear unfolding of essential 
"sequences and relations," than to pack it with a dense 
collection of facts. In choosing the matter to be dealt 
with he has found himself in agreement again with the 
committee already quoted, who say in their report : 
"■ While industrial and social phases of progress should 
by no means be slighted, it is an absolute necessity that 
a course in American history should aim to give a con- 
nected narrative of political events and to record the 
gradual upbuilding of institutions, the slow establishment 
of political ideals and practices." This is unquestionably 
true. The political institutions of the democratic re- 
public of the United States are fundamental to every- 



VI PREFACE. 

thing else in the life of the natiom Forces and influ- 
ences that arise out of the self-governing habits of the 
people have entered into all that they do, giving char- 
acter and direction to all developments among them, 
all advance, all change, whether social or industrial in 
its field, or intellectual or moral in its work. Hence 
the political history of the United States is a great main 
stream, which forces us in our study to follow its course ; 
but every other stream of historical movement flows to 
it as a tributary, and all the expanses of the national 
life are opened by it to our view. 

Twice in the narrative of colonial history — near 
the close of the seventeenth century and at the opening 
of the War of Independence — the writer has paused 
to introduce a comprehensive survey of the economic 
and social conditions existing in different sections of 
the country at those times. At the end of the work he 
has given a retrospective survey of similar conditions 
as they appear in the rapid flux of later times. These 
surveys, together with an Introduction, which sketches 
matters prior to the European settlement of regions 
within the territory of the United States, are not pre- 
sented as numbered chapters of the book, nor printed 
in the type of those chapters. The intention is that 
teachers shall use them for reading and reference, or for 
regular study in the course, as they find best. 

At the end of every chapter the topics of each sec- 
tion in it are carefully rehearsed, with numerous re- 
ferenjces to standard historical works and documentary 
collections, for the collateral reading and verification 



PREFACE. Vll 

which all teachers of history require. Since the books 
that are accessible to students must vary in different 
schools, it has seemed desirable to multiply the refer- 
ences beyond what would otherwise be needed. By 
giving so wide a range to them, and by making them 
more than usually specific, it is believed that a feature 
of importance is given to the book. A full list of the 
works referred to, arranged alphabetically under authors' 
names, is placed next to the maps which precede the 
text. The reference to each is by the author's name 
only, if he is represented in the list by no more than 
one work ; but when two or more works of the same 
authorship appear in the list, they are distinguished by a 
catch title in the reference. 

Attention is invited to the numerous maps with which 
the book is equipped, and to the mode in which they are 
arranged. The larger maps, most of which will be con- 
sulted frequently, on various subjects, are placed together, 
at the beginning of the volume, and referred to by num- 
bers from the text. Thus placed, in what forms an 
historical atlas within the book, they are found more 
easily, and can be used more conveniently, than if dis- 
tributed here and there. Smaller maps, for the special 
illustration of single subjects or events, are inserted 
with liberality in the text. 

The index to the book has been prepared with more 
than common care, and is designed to be especially 
helpful to a continuous study of all important subjects 
in the history which run through long periods of time. 
By explanatory entries such subjects are made fully and 



viii PREFACE. 

clearly traceable from beginning to end. The index in- 
cludes also a guide to the maps, pointing out, for every 
place of historical interest, the map in which it appears 
and its position thereon. 

The opinion of many teachers has concurred with the 
judgment of the publishers and the writer in deciding 
that pictorial illustrations would add little or nothing to 
the interest or instructive value of this book. Most of 
the portraits and other proper subjects that are available 
for historical illustration are made familiar to young 
people by text-books in the lower schools, and will be 
stale to them if repeated here. Pictures are omitted, 
therefore, from these pages, while maps are abundantly 
supplied. 

Suggestions from many sources have been helpful to 
the writer in preparing his book ; but he owes especial 
thanks to Mr. M. W. Richardson, junior-master of the 
South Boston High School, who has critically examined 
both the manuscript and the proofs, with great benefit to 
the general quality of the work ; and to teachers in the 
Buffalo high schools, who have rendered a like service 
to some parts of the book. 

Buffalo, July, 1903. 



PAGE 

xiii 
xxxi 



CONTENTS. 

List of Works referred to • 

Atlas of Historical Maps 

INTRODUCTION. 

Discovery and Early Exploration of America i 

Europe and America in the Sixteenth Century .... 12 

The Aboriginal Inhabitants of North America .... 16 
Physical Features of North America and their Histori- 

22 
cal Influence 



THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH. 1607-1688. 

AFTER /■ eia 

I. Beginnings of the Early Colonies. 1607-1060 . . 25 
II. Political and Social Development of the Early 

Colonies "^ 

III. The Colonies under Charles II. and James II. 

1660-1688 ^° 

State of the Colonies in the Last Years of the 
Seventeenth Century 108 

COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT. i688-i775- 

IV. The Period of Strife with France, i 690-1 760 . . 119 
V. The Provocations to Revolt. 1760-177 5 .... 160 

THE MAKING OF A NATION. 1775-1800. 

State of the Thirteen Colonies at the Begin- 
ning OF THE War of Independence ...... 186 

VI. The American Revolution and Wai^jOF Independ- 

ence. 1775-1783 ^^^ 

VII. The United States under the Articles of Con- 

federation. 1781-1789 248 

VIII The Founding of a National Government. 1789- 

1801 ■ 271 



X CONTENTS. 

EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 1800-1840. 

IX. The Young Nation harassed by Older Powers. 

1801-1809 306 

X. Second War with England. 1809-1817 332 

XI. American Democracy finding Independence. 181 5- 

1828 362 

XTI. The Jackson I^eriod. 1829-1840 . 393 

SECTIONAL CONTENTION. 1840-1860. 

XIII, Expansion to the Pacific : for Free Labor or 

Slave Labor : which ? 1841-1848 428 

XIV. The Maddening Slavery Question. 1848-1860 . . 450 

SECESSION, CIVIL WAR, AND REUNION. 1860-1880. 

XV. The War for the Union : its First Period — Spar- 
ing Slavery. 1860-1862 484 

XVI. The War for the Union: its Second Period — 

Striking at Slavery, i 862-1865 525 

XVII. The Restored Union. 1865-1880 561 

THE NEW ERA. 

XVIII. Recent Years 581 

Epochs of Progress and Change 609 

APPENDIX. 

A. The Constitution of the United States ...... i 

B. List of States 18 

C. Presidential Elections : Parties, Candidates, Methods, 

and Votes 20 

D. Important Measures of the National Government . . 41 
Index 49 



LIST OF MAPS. 

ATLAS OP^ HISTORICAL MAPS. 

NUMBER 

L Map showing the Physical Features of Greatest Influ- 
ence ON American History. 
IL North America : Discovery, Exploration, and Early 

Settlement, 1492-1732. 
in. John Smith's Map of New England. 
IV. North America in 1774. 

V. New England Colonies and Contiguous Territory 
northward, to the War of Independence. 
VI. Middle Colonies and Contiguous Territory north- 
ward, TO THE War of Independence. 
VII, Southern Colonies, to the War of Independence. 
VIII. Land Claims of the States prior to the Cessions of 
1780-1802. 
IX. The United States in 1790. 
X. The Pacific Slope in 1849. 
XL The United States in 1860-1861. 

XII. The Civil War in the East: Field of the Principal 
Campaigns. 

XIII. The Civil War in the West: Field of the Principal 

Campaigns. 

XIV, Slavery in the United States. Its Recessions, Exten- 

sions, AND Final Extinction. 1780-1865. 
XV. Continental Expansion of the United States since 

1783. 
XVI. Insular Expansion of the United States, 1898. 
XVII. Elements of the Population of the United States; 
their Growth from 1790 to 1890. 

MAPS IN THE TEXT. 

PAGE 

Domain of the Northern Iroquois 26 

Grant of 1606 to the Virginia Company in its Two 

Branches, and Grant of 1609 to the London Company . 29 

The James River Colony 3^ 



xu LIST OF MAPS. 

First Settlement in Maryland 34 

The First New England Settlements. ... .... 39 

Beginnings of Connecticut 42 

First Settlements on Narragansett Bay 44 

Early Dutch Settlements 47 

Early Settlements in the Carolina Grant 84 

Principal Field of King William's and Queen Anne's 

Wars 125 

LOUISBOURG THE KeY TO THE GULF OF St. LaWRENCE . . . 1 38 

The French in the Upper Mississippi Valley and around 

THE Great Lakes 141 

Military Posts in the Frontier Regions of Northeastern 
New York and neighboring Canada. From Miles's History 

of Canada, reproduced in Winsor's America 145 

Plan of the Siege of Quebec. From Miles's History of Can- 
ada, reproduced in Winsor's America 149 

Boston, Lexington, Concord, and Vicinity 195 

Plan of the Battle of Bunker Hill 261 

The Field of War on the Hudson 209 

The Seat of War between the Hudson and Delaware . 211 

Route of Burgoyne's Invasion 213 

The Seat of War in the South 225 

The Barbary States 311 

Niagara Frontier in 1812-14. Reproduced, with a few adapta- 
tions, from a Gazetteer of the Province of Upper Canada, published 

in 1813 341 

Western Lake Erie in the War of 1812 345 

Maryland in the War of 1812 349 

Field of General Taylor's Campaign in Mexico .... 440 

General Scott's Route from Vera Cruz to Mexico . . . 441 

Approaches to Washington from the North (1861) . . . 493 

Field of War in West Virginia (1861-1865) 499 

Field of War in and around Missouri and Western 

Kentucky (1861-1865) 503 

The Blockaded Coast (1861-1865) 505 

Hampton Roads 509 

Charleston Harbor 534 

Track of Sherman's March to the Sea 543 

Track of Sherman's March northward from Savannah . 545 

Manila Bay 597 

The Santiago Campaign (1898) 598 



LIST OF WORKS REFERRED TO. 

The following are the works referred to in this history, 
either in the text or in the summaries of topics, with refer- 
ences for collateral reading and research, that are appended 
to the several chapters. 

Adams, Henry. History of the United States of America during the 
[administrations of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison]. 9 vols. 
Scribners, New York. $18.00. 

John Randolph. American Statesmen Series. Houghton, Mif- 
flin & Co., Boston. $1.25. 

Adams, Herbert B. Maryland's Influence upon Land Cessions to the 
United States. Johns Hopkins Studies, 3d Series, No. i. Baltimore. 
$0.75. 

Adams, John. Works, with a life of the author by his grandson, 
Charles Francis Adams. 10 vols. Little, Brown & Co., Boston. $30.00. 

Adams, John Quincy. Memoirs, comprising Portions of his Diary 
from 1795 to 1848. Edited by C. F. Adams. Lippincott & Co., Phila- 
delphia. 10 vols. $5.00 per vol. 

American Archives: Fourth Series. Containing a documentary his- 
tory of the English Colonies in North America from . . . March 7 to 
. . . July 4, 1776. 6 vols. M. St. Clair & Peter Force, "Washington. 

American Historical Association. Annual Reports, i 889-. Gov- 
ernment Printing Oflice, Washington. 

Papers, 1886-1891. 5 vols. Putnams, New York. 

American Historical Review. Macmillan, New York. Single 
numbers, $1.00 net. 

American History Leaflets. Colonial and Constitutional. Edited 
by Albert Bushnell Hart and Edward Channing. Lovell & Co., New 
York. Each $o.to. 

Ames, Fisher. Works, with a selection from his speeches and corre- 
spondence. Edited by his son. 2 vols. Little, Brown & Co., Boston. 
$4.50. 

Ammen, Daniel. The Atlantic Coast. The Navy in the Civil War, 
II. Scribners, New York. $1.00. 

Andrews, E. Benjamin. History of the last Quarter-Century in the 
United States, 1870-1895. 2 vols. Scribners, New York. $6.00. ,. 



XIV LIST.OF WORKS REFERRED TO. 

Annual Register, or a View of the History, Politics and Literature, 
for the Year, 1758-. London. 

Arnold, Samuel G. History of Rhode Island and Providence Plan- 
tations. 2 vols. Preston & Rounds, Providence. $7.50 net. 

Atlantic Monthly. Houghton, Mififlin & Co., Boston. $0.35 per 
copy. 

Bagehot, Walter. The English Constitution and other Political 
Essays. Appleton, New York. $2.00. 

Baird, Charles W. History of the Huguenot Emigration to Amer- 
ica. 2 vols. Dodd, Mead & Co., New York. $2.50 net. 

Ballagh, James Curtis. White Servitude in the Colony of Virginia. 
Johns Hopkins Studies, Baltimore. $0.50. 

Bancroft, George. History of the United States from the Discovery. 
Author's last revision. 6 vols. Appleton, New York. [Vol. 6 contains 
the History of the Formation of the Constitution, which is published also 
as a separate work.] $15.00. 

Bancroft, Hubert H. History of the Pacific States of North Amer- 
ica. 27 vols. Bancroft, San Francisco. $270.50. 

Barnes, William H. History of the Thirty-ninth Congress of the 
United States. Harpers, New York. $5.00. 

Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. Being for the most 
part contributions by Union and Confederate officers, based upon " The 
Century War Series." Edited by Robert Underwood Johnson and Clar- 
ence Clough Buell. 4 vols. Century Co., New York. $15.00 net. 

Benton, Thomas H. Thirty Years' View ; or a History of the Work- 
ing of the American Government for Thirty Years, from 1820 to 1850. 
2 vols. Appleton, New York. $6.00. 

Bishop, J. Leander. History of American Manufactures from 1608 
to i860. 2 vols. Young & Co., Philadelphia. 

Blaine, James G. Twenty Years of Congress, from Lincoln to Gar- 
field. 2 vols. Funk & Wagnalls Co., New York. $3.75 per vol. 

Bolles, Albert S. Financial History of the United States. V. i : 
1774-1789. V. 2: 1789-1860. V. 3: 1861-18S5. 3 vols. Appleton, 
New York. V. i, $2.50. — V. 2, $3.50. — V. 3, $3.50. 

Boone, Richard G, Education in the United States. Its history. 
International Education Series. Appleton, New York. $1.50. 

Bourinot, J. G. Story of Canada. Story of Nations Series. Put- 
nams, New York. $1.50. 

Brady, Cyrus Townsend. Commodore Paul Jones. Great Com- 
manders Series. Appleton, New York. $1.50 net. 

Brodhead, John Romeyn. History of the State of New York. 
2 vols. Harpers, New York. $3.00. 

Brooks, N. C. Complete History of the Mexican War. Gregg, 
Elliot & Co., Philadelphia. 



LIST OF WORKS REFERRED TO. XV 

Brooks, Phillips. Tolerance : two lectures. Button & Co., New 
York. J^o.75. 

Brown, Alexander. English Politics in Early Virginia History. 
Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. $2,00. 

The First Republic in America. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Bos- 
ton. ^7.50. 

Browne, William Hand. Maryland. The History of a Palatinate. 
American Commonwealths Series. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. 
^1.25. 

Bruce, Henry. Life of General Oglethorpe. Makers of America 
Series. Dodd, Mead & Co., New York. $1.00. 

Bruce, Philip Alexander. Economic History of Virginia in the 
Seventeenth Century. 2 vols. Macmillan, New York. $6.00. 

Bryce, James. The American Commonwealth. 2 vols. Macmillan, 
London. ^4.00 net. 

Burgess, John W. The Civil War and the Constitution, 1859-1865. 
American History Series. Scribners, New York. 2 vols. $2.00 net. 

The Middle Period, 181 7-1860. American History Series. Scrib- 
ners, New York. $1.00 net. 

Reconstruction and the Constitution, 1866-1876. American His- 
tory Series. Scribners, New York. ^i. 00 net. 

Burke, John. History of Virginia from its Settlement to the Revolu- 
tion. 3 vols. Petersburg, Va. ^7.50. 

Butler, Nicholas Murray, Editor-. Education in the United 
States. Monographs prepared for the United States Exhibit at the Paris 
Exposition, 1900. 2 vols. J. B. Lyon Co., Albany. ^3.50. 

Cable, George W. The Negro Question. Scribners, New York. 
$0.75. 

The Silent South. Scribners, New York. ^i.oo. 

Carpenter, F. B. Six Months at the White House with Abraham 
Lincoln. The story of a picture. Hurd & Houghton, New York. 

Carrington, Henry B. Battles of the American Revolution, 1775- 
1881. Historical and Military Criticism, with topographical illustrations. 
Barnes & Co., New York. $5.00. 

Washington, the Soldier. Scribners, New York. ^2.00. 

Celebration of the Beginning of the 2d Century of the 
American Patent System, April, 1891. Washington. 

Census Reports. Twelfth Census of the United States, taken in 
the year 1900. U. S. Census Office, Washington. 

Century Magazine. Century Co., New York. $0.35 per number. 

Cist, Henry M. The Army of the Cumberland. Campaigns of the 
Civil War, VH. Scribners, New York. $1.00. 

Clarke, James Freeman. History of the Campaign of 18 12 and sur- 
render of the Post of Detroit. [Being the second part of a volume which 



XVI LIST OF WORKS REFERRED TO. 

contains also " The Revolutionary Services and Civil Life of General 
William Hull, by his daughter, Mrs. Maria Campbell."] Appleton, New 
York. 

Clay, Henry. Works. Comprising his Life, Correspondence, and 
Speeches. Edited by Calvin Colton, with an introduction by Thomas B. 
Reed, and a History of Tariff Legislation from 1812 to 1896, by William 
McKinley. 7 vols. E. R. Herrick & Co., New York. $14.00. 

Cleveland, Grover. Writings and Speeches. Edited by George F. 
Parker. Cassell Publishing Co., New York. $2.50. 

CoHB, Sanford H. The Story of the Palatines. Putnams, New 
York. $2.00. 

Congressional Directory (Official). Government Printing Office, 
Washington. 

Cooke, John Esten. Stonewall Jackson, a Military Biography. 
Appleton, New York. $3.00. 

Virginia. A History of the People. American Commonwealths 

Series. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. $1.25. 

Cooley, T. M., Hitchcock, H., et aL Constitutional History of the 
United States as seen in the Development of American Law. Putnams, 
New York, j552.oo. 

Cooper, James Fenimore. History of the Navy of the United States 
of America. 2 vols. Lea & Blanchard, Philadelphia. 

Copp6e, Henry. General Thomas. Great Commanders Series. 
Appleton, New York. $1.50. 

Cox, Jacob Dolsen. Atlanta. Campaigns of the Civil War, IX. 
Scribners, New York. $1.00. 

The March to the Sea. Franklin and Nashville. Campaigns of 

the Civil War, X. Scribners, New York. $1.00. 

Cox, Samuel S. Three Decades of Federal Legislation, 1855-1885. 
Reid, Providence. $4.50. 

CuLLUM, George W. Campaigns of the War of 1812-1815. James 
Miller, New York. $5.00. 

Curtis, George Ticknor. History of the Origin, Formation and 
Adoption of the Constitution of the United States. 2 vols. Harpers, 
New York. $6.00. 

Cutler, William Parker, and Julia Perkins. Life, Journals 
and Correspondence of Rev. Manasseh Cutler, LL. D. 2 vols. Clarke 
& Co., Cincinnati. $5.00. 

Davis, Jefferson. Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government. 
2 vols. Appleton, New York. $10.00. 

De Tocqueville. See Tocqueville. 

Dexter, Morton. Story of the Pilgrims. Congregationalist S. S. 
and Publishing Society, Boston and Chicago. $0.75. 

Dickinson, John. Writings, ed. by P. L. Ford. Vol. i. Hist. Soc. 
of Penn. 



LIST OF WORKS REFERRED TO. xvil 

Dix, Morgan. Memoirs of John Adams Dix. 2 vols. Harpers, 
New York. $5.00. 

Donaldson, Thomas. The Public Domain. Its History, with Sta- 
tistics. Government Printing Office, Washington. 

DouBLEDAY, Abner. Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. Campaigns 
of the Civil War, VI. Scribners, New York. ^i.oo. 

Doyle, J. A. The Enghsh in America. Vol. i. Virginia, Maryland, 
andthe Carolinas. Vols. 2-3. The Puritan Colonies. Longmans, London. 
Henry Holt, New York. $3.50 per vol. 

Drake, Samuel Adams. Border Wars of New England. Scribners, 
New York. ^1.50. 

The Making of New England, 1 580-1643. Scribners, New York. 

$1.50. 

The Making of the Ohio Valley States, 1660-1837. Scribners, 

New York. $1.50. 

The Making of Virginia and the Middle Colonies, 1578-1701. 

Scribners, New York. $1.50. 

The Taking of Louisbourg, 1745. Lee & Shepard, Boston. $0.50. 

Draper, John W. History of the American Civil War. 3 vols. 
Harpers, New York. ^10.50. 

Draper, Lyman C. King's Mountain and its Heroes. History of 
the Battle of King's Mountain, October 7, 1780, and the events which led 
to it. Peter G. 'I'homson, Cincinnati. 

Dunn, J. P. Indiana. A Redemption from Slavery. American 
Commonwealths Series. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. $1.25. 

Eggleston, Edward. The Beginners of a Nation. Appleton, New 
York. $1.50. 

The Transit of Civilization from England to America in the Seven- 
teenth Century. Appleton, New York. $1.50. 

Elliot, Jonathan, Editor. The Debates in the Several State Con- 
ventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, as recommended 
by the General Convention at Philadelphia in 1787. Together with the 
Journal of the Federal Convention, Luther Martin's Letter, Yates's Min- 
utes, Congressional Opinions [etc.]. 4 vols. Washington. 

Elliott, Orrin Leslie. The Tariff Controversy in the United 
States, 1789-1833. Leland Stanford Junior University Monographs. Palo 
Alto, Cal. $1.00. 

Ellis, George E. Puritan Age and Rule in the Colony of Massa- 
chusetts Bay, 1629-1685. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. $3.50. 

Federalist, The. A Commentary on the Constitution of the United 
States, by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay. lidited 
by Paul Leicester Ford. Holt, New York. ^1.75. 

Fernow, Berthold. The Ohio Valley in Colonial Days. Munsells, 
Albany. 



xvill LIST OF WORKS REFERRED TO. 

FisKE, John. American Political Ideas viewed from the Standpoint 
of Universal History. Harpers, New York. $i.oo. 

The American Revolution. 2 vols. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 

Boston. $4.00. 

The Beginnings of New England. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 

Boston. $2.00. 

Civil Government in the United States considered with some 

Reference to its Origins. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. $1.00 net. 

Critical Period of American History, 1 783-1 789. Houghton, Mif- 
flin & Co., Boston. ^2.00. 

The Discovery of America, with some Account of Ancient America 

and the Spanish Conquest. 2 vols. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. 
$4.00. 

The Dutch and Quaker Colonies in America. 2 vols. Houghton, 

Mifflin & Co., Boston. $4.00. 

Essays, Historical and Literary. 2 vols. Macmillan, New York. 

$4.00 net. 

New France and New England. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Bos- 



ton. $1.65 net. 

Old Virginia and her Neighbours. 2 vols. Houghton, Mifflin & 

Co., Boston. $4.00. 

Flick, Alexander Clarence, Loyalism in New York during the 
American Revolution. Columbia University Press. Macmillan, New 
York. I2.00 net. 

Force, M. F. From Fort Henry to Corinth. Campaigns of the Civil 
War, II. Scribners, New York. $1.00. 

Ford, Paul Leicester, Editor. Pamphlets on the Constitution of 
the United States published during its Discussion by the People, 1787- 
1788. Brooklyn. 

Franklin, Benj.\min. Autobiography; edited by John Bigelow. 
I vol. Elia Series. Putnams, New York. ^i.oo. 

Works, ed. by Jared Sparks. 10 vols. Boston. 

P'reeman, Edward A. Greater Greece and Greater Britain. Mac- 
millan, London. $1.00. 

Frothingham, Richard. History of the Siege of Boston and of the 
Battles of I>exington, Concord, and Bunker Hill. C. C. Little and James 
Brown, Boston. $3.50. 

Rise of the Republic of the United States. Little, Brown & Co., 

Boston. $3.50. 

Gardiner, Samuel Rawson. Student's History of England. Long- 
mans, London. 3 vols. $3.00 net. 

Garrison, William Lloyd. The Story of his Life, told by his Chil- 
dren. 4 vols. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. $8.00 net. 

Gay, Sydney Howard. James Madison. American Statesmen 
Series. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. $125, 



LIST OF WORKS REFERRED TO. xix 

Geiser, Karl Frederick. Redemptioners and Indentured Servants 
in the Colony and Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Supplement to Yale 
Review. Vol. lo. No. 2. New Haven. $1.50. 

Oilman, Daniel C. James Monroe. American Statesmen Series. 
Houghton, Miiiflin & Co., Boston. $1.25. 

Gordon, Thomas F. History of Pennsylvania, to 1776. Cary, Lea 
& Cary, Philadelphia. 

GoRDY, J. P. History of Political Parties in the United States. 
Vol. 1-2. Henry Holt & Co., New York. Title changed on the issue of 
vol. 2 to Political History of the United States. $1.75 net per vol. 

Grant, Ulysses S. Personal Memoirs. 2 vols. Century Co., New 
York. $5.00. 

Green, John Richard. Short History of the English People. 
American Book Co., New York. $1.20. 

Greene, Francis Vinton. General Greene. Great Commanders 
Series. Appleton, New York. $1.50. 

The Mississippi. Campaigns of the Civil War, VIII. Scribners, 

New York. $1.00. 

Greene, George W. Life of Nathanael Greene. 3 vols. Hurd & 
Houghton, Boston. $7.50. 

Short History of Rhode Island. J. A. & R. A. Reid, Providence. 

Griffis, William Elliot. Matthew Galbraith Perry. A typical 
American naval officer. Houghton, Mififlin & Co., Boston. $2.00. 

GuizoT, F. P. G. Essay on the Character and Influence of Wash- 
ington in the Revolution of the United States of America. Miller, New 
York. 

Hall, Henry. Ethan Allen, the Robin Hood of Vermont. Apple- 
ton, New York. $1.00. 

Hallow^ell, Richard P. Quaker Invasion of Massachusetts. 
Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. $1.25. 

Hamilton, Alexander. Works, edited by J. C. Hamilton. 7 vols. 
Charles S. Francis & Co., New York. 

Hanna, Charles A. The Scotch-Irish, or the Scot in North Britain, 
North Ireland, and North America. 2 vols. Putnams, New York. $10.00. 

Harrison, Frederic. George Washington, and other Addresses. 
Macmillan, New York. $1.75 net. 

Hart, Albert Bushnell. Formation of the Union, 1750-1829. 
F^pochs of American History Series. Longmans, New York. $1.75. 

Introduction to a Study of Federal Government. Harvard His- 
torical Monographs, 2. Ginn & Co., Boston. 

Practical Essays on American Government. Longmans, New 

York. $1.50. 

Salmon Portland Chase. American Statesmen Series. Houghton, 

Mifflin & Co., Boston. $1.25. 



XX LIST OF WORKS REFERRED TO. 

Hart, Albert Bushnell, Editor. American History told by Con- 
temporaries. 4 vols. Macmillan, New York. $2.00 per vol. 

Herbert, Hilary A., and Others. Why the Solid South ? or 
Reconstruction and its Results. R. H. Woodward, Baltimore. $1.25. 

HiGGiNSON, Thomas Wentworth. Larger History of the United 
States, to the Close of President Jackson's Administration. Harpers, 
New York. $2.00. 

Hildreth, Richard. History of the United States of America. 
First Series, from the Discovery of the Continent to the Organization of 
the Government under the Federal Constitution. 3 vols. Second Series, 
from the Adoption of the Federal Constitution to the end of the Sixteenth 
Congress. 3 vols. Together, 6 vols. Harpers, New York. $12.00. 

Hinsdale, B. A. The American Government. Werner Book Co., 
Chicago. $1.25 net. 

The Old Northwest. With a View of the Thirteen Colonies as 

Constituted by the Royal Charters. Silver, Burdett & Co., Boston. $1.75. 

Hodges, George. William Penn. Riverside Biographical Series. 
Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. $0.50 net. 

Holst, H. von. Constitutional and Political History of the United 
States. Translated from the German by J. J. Lalor and A. B. Mason. 
8 vols. Callaghan & Co., Chicago, j^i2.oo net. 

The Constitutional Law of the United States of America. Trans. 

by A. B. Mason. Callaghan & Co., Chicago. $2.00 net. 

John Brown. De Wolfe, Fiske & Co., Boston. $1.25. 

John C. Calhoun. American Statesmen Series. Houghton, 

Mifflin & Co., Boston. $1.25. 

Hosmer, James K. Life of Thomas Hutchinson, Royal Governor of 
the Province of Massachusetts Bay. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. 

$4-oo. 

Life of Young Sir Henry Vane, Governor of Massachusetts Bay 

and Leader of the Long Parliament. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. 
$4.00. 

Samuel Adams. American Statesmen Series. Houghton, Mif- 
flin & Co., Boston. $1.25. 

Short History of Anglo-Saxon Freedom. Scribners, New York. 

$2.00. 

Short History of the Mississippi Valley. Houghton, Mifflin & 

Co., Boston. $1.20 net. 

Hubbard, William. History of the Indian Wars of New England. 
Ed. by Samuel G. Drake. 2 vols. Woodward, Roxbury. 

HuGHSON, Shirley Carter. The Carolina Pirates and Colonial 
Commerce, 1670-1740. Johns Hopkins Studies, l^altimore. $1.00. 

Humphreys, Andrew A. The Virginia Campaign of '64 and '65. 
The Army of the Potomac and the Army of the James. Campaigns of 
the Civil War, XH. Scribners, New York. $1.00. 



LIST OF WORKS REFERRED TO. xxi 

Hunt, Gaillard. Life of James Madison. Doubleday, Page & Co., 
New Yorkt ^2,50 net. 

Hutchinson, Thomas. History of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay 
from . . . 1628 until . . . 1691. Boston. 

Same, from 1691 to 1750. Boston. 

Same, from 1749 to 1774. Murray, London. 

Iles, George. Flame, Electricity, and the Camera. Doubleday, Page 
& Co., New York. $2.00 net. 

Interstate Commerce Commission. Annual Report on the Statis- 
tics of Railways [by Henry C. Adams]. Government Printing Office, 
Washington. 

Irving, Washin(;ton. Life of George Washington. 5 vols. Put- 
nams, New York. $50,00. 

James, William. Naval History of Great Britain, 1793-1820. 6 vols. 
Macmillan, New York. $12.00. 

Jay, William. Review of the Causes and Consequences of the 
Mexican War. Mussey & Co., Boston. 

Jefferson, Thomas: Writings. Collected and edited by Paul 
Leicester Ford. 10 vols. Putnams, New York. $5.00 net. 

Writings. Edited by H, A. Washington. 9 vols. Lippincott. 

$27.00. 

Jevons, W. Stanley. Money and the Mechanism of Exchange. 
Kegan Paul, London. 

Johnston, Alexander. Connecticut. A Study of a Commonwealth- 
Democracy. American Commonwealths Series. Houghton, Mifflin & 
Co., Boston. $1.25. 

History of American Politics. 3d edition, revised ^and enlarged 

by William M. Sloane. Holt & Co., New York. $0.80 net. 

The United States. Its History and Constitution. Scribners, 

New York. $1.00. 

Editor. Representative American Orations to illustrate American 

Political History. 3 vols. Putnams, New York. 

Kapp, Friedrich. Life of Frederick William von Steuben. Mason 
Bros., New York. 

Kendall, Amos. Autobiography. Edited by his son-in-law, William 
Stickney. Lee & Shepard, Boston. $3.00. 

King, Rufus. Ohio. First Fruits of the Ordinance of 1787. Ameri- 
can Commonwealths Series. Houghton, Mififiin & Co., Boston. $1.25. 

Kingsford, William. History of Canada. 10 vols. Rowsel & 
Hutchinson, Toronto. 

KiNLEY, D. The Independent Treasury of the United States. 
Crowell & Co., New York. $1.50. 

Lalor, John J., Editor. Cyclopedia of Political Science, Political 
Economy, and of the Political History of the United States, By the best 



xxii LIST OF WORKS REFERRED TO. 

American Writers. 3 vols. Rand, McNally & Co., Chicago. Each, 
$6.00. 

Earned, J. N. History of England for the Use of Schools and Acade- 
mies. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. $1.25 net. 

Editor. History for Ready Reference. From the best Historians, 

Biographers and Specialists. 6 vols. C. A. Nichols Co., Springfield, 
Mass. 

Lauer, Paul E. Church and State in New England. Johns Hopkins 
Studies. Baltimore. ^0.50. 

Lecky, William Edward Hartpole. History of England in the 
Eighteenth Century. 8 vols. Appleton & Co., New York. $20.00. 

Levermore, Charles H. The Republic of New Haven. Johns Hop- 
kins University Studies. Baltimore. 

Lincoln, Abraham. Complete Works, comprising his Speeches, Let- 
ters, State Papers, and Miscellaneous Writings. Edited by John G. Nicolay 
and John Hay. 2 vols. Century Co., New York. $10.00. 

Livermore, Mary A. My Story of the War : a woman's narrative 
of four years' personal experience as nurse in the Union Army and in re- 
lief work. Worthington & Co., Hartford. $3.50. 

Lodge, Henry Cabot. Alexander Hamilton. American Statesmen 
Series. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. $1.25. 

Daniel Webster. American Statesmen Series. Houghton, Mifflin 

& Co., Boston. $1.25. 

George Washington. American Statesmen Series. 2 vols. Hough- 
ton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. $2.50. 

Life and Letters of George Cabot. Little, Brown & Co., Boston. 

$3.50 net. 

Short History of the English Colonies in America. Harpers, 

New York. $3.00. 

Long, A. L. Memoirs of Robert E. Lee. His military and personal 
history. Stoddart & Co., New York. 

LoTHROP, Thornton Kirkland. William Henry Seward. Ameri- 
can Statesmen Series. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. $1.25. 

Lowp:ll, Edw^ard J. The Hessians, and other German Auxiliaries of 
Great Britain in the Revolutionary War. Harpers, New York. $1.50. 

Lowell, James Russell. Among my Books. Houghton, Mifflin & 
Co., Boston. Series i and 2, each $2 00. 

Biglow Papers. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. 

Macaulay, Thomas Babington, Lord. Critical and Historical Es- 
says. 3 vols. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. $6.00. 

History of England from the Accession of James IL 5 vols. 

Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. $10.00. 

McCrady, Edward. History of South Carolina. [Vol. i] under the 
Proprietary Government, 1670-1719; [Vol. 2] under the Royal Govern- 



LIST OF WORKS REFERRED TO. xxill 

ment, 1719-1776; [Vol. 3] in the Revolution, 1775-1780. Macmillan, 
New York. Each $3.50 net. 

McCuLLOCH, Hugh. Men and Measures of Half a Century. Scribners, 
New York. $2.50. 

MacDonald, William, Editor. Select Charters and other Docu- 
ments Illustrative of American History, 1606-1775; with notes. Mac- 
millan, New York. $2.25 net. 

Editor. Select Documents Illustrative of the History of the United 

States, 1776-1861. Macmillan, New York. 

MacLean, J. P. Historical Account of the Settlement of Scotch High- 
landers in America. Helman-Taylor Co., Cleveland. $5.00. 

MacMaster, John Bach. History of the People of the United States 
from the Revolution to the Civil War. 7 vols. Appleton & Co., New 
York. Each $2.50. 

McPherson, Edw^ard. Political History of the United States of Amer- 
ica during the Great Rebellion. 2d ed. Philip & Solomon, Washington. 
^5.00. 

Madison, James. Letters and other Writings. 4 vols. Lippincotts, 
Philadelphia. $16.00. 

Papers purchased by order of Congress.^ 3 vols. Langley, New 

York. 

Magruder, Allan B, John Marshall. American Statesmen Series. 
Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. $1.25. 

Mahan, a. T. The Gulf and Inland Waters. The Navy in the Civil 
War, III. Scribners, New York. $1.00. 

Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire 

2 vols. Little, Brown & Co., Boston. $6.00. 

r Influence of Sea Power upon Plistory, 1660-1783. Little, Brown 

& Co., Boston. $4.00. 

Marshall, John. Writings upon the Federal Constitution. Munroe 
& Co., Boston. 

Martineau, Harriet. Retrospect of Western Travel. 2 vols. 
Harpers, New York. 

Massachusetts Historical Society. Collections, Boston. 

Mendenhall, Thomas C. Century of Electricity. Houghton, Mif- 
flin & Co., Boston. 

Morley, John. Walpole. English Statesmen Series. Macmillan, 
London. $0.75. 

Morse, John T., Jr. John Adams. American Statesmen Series. 
Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. $1.25. 

John Quincy Adams. American Statesmen Series. Houghton, 

Mifflin & Co., Boston. $1.25. 

Benjamin Franklin. American Statesmen Series. Houghton, Mif- 
flin & Co., Boston. $1.25. 

1 Madison's Journal of the Constitutional Convention contained in vols. 2-3. 



XXIV LIST OF WORKS REFERRED TO. 

Morse, John T., Jr. Thomas Jefferson. American Statesmen Series. 
Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, $1.25. 

Abraham Lincoln. American Statesmen Series. 2 vols. Hough- 
ton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. ^2.50. 

National Educational Association. Journal of Proceedings and 
Addresses. 

New York State. Documents relative to the Colonial History of 
the State of New York, procured in Holland, England, and France by 
John Romeyn Brodhead. 14 vols. Edited by E. B. O'Callaghan and B. 
Fernow. Albany. 

Nichols, George Ward. Story of the Great -March. Harpers, New 
York. 1 1. 50. 

NicoLAV, John G. The Outbreak of Rebellion. Campaigns of the 
Civil War, L Scribners, New York. $1.00. 

NicoLAY, John G., and Hay, John. Abraham Lincoln. A History. 
10 vols. Century Co., New York. $20.00. 

North American Review. 1S16-1903. Boston-New York. $0.50 
per number. 

O'Callaghan, E. B. History of New Netherland, or New York under 
the Dutch. 2 vols. Appleton & Co., New York. $6.00. 

Old South Leaflets. Published by the Directors of the Old South 
Work. Boston. $0.05 each. 

Palfrey, Francis Winthrop. The Antietam and Fredericksburg 
Campaigns. Campaigns of the Civil War, V. Scribners, New York. 
$1.00. 

Palfrey, John Gorham. History of New England to the Revolution 
of the Seventeenth Century. 2 vols. The same, to the Revolution of the 
Eighteenth Century, i vol. The same, during the Stuart Dynasty. 2 vols. 
Little, Brown & Co., Boston. $18.00 net. 

Paris, L. P. A. d'Orleans, Comte de. History of the Civil War in 
America. Trans, by Louis F. Tasistro. Edited by Henry Coppee. 4 
vols. Coates & Co., Philadelphia. Each $3.50. 

Parkman, Francis. The Conspiracy of Pontiac and the Indian War 
after the Conquest of Canada. 2 vols. Little, Brown & Co., Boston. 
$3.00. 

Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV. Little, 

Brown & Co., Boston. $1.50. 

Half-Century of Conflict. 2 vols. Little, Brown & Co., Boston. 

$3.00. 

The Jesuits in North America. Little, Brown & Co., Boston. 

$1.50. 

La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West, Little, Brown & 

Co., Boston. $1.50. 

Montcalm and Wolfe. 2 vols. Little, Brown & Co., Boston. $3.00. 



LIST OF WORKS REFERRED TO. xxv 

Parkman, Francis. The Old Regime in Canada. Little, Brown & 
Co., Boston. $1.50. 

Pioneers of France in the New World. Little, Brown & Co., 

Boston. ^1.50. 

Parton, James. Life and Times of Aaron Burr. 2 vols. Houghton, 
Mifflin & Co., Boston. $5.00. 

Life of Andrew Jackson. 3 vols. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Bos- 
ton. $7.50. 

Life of Thomas Jefferson, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. ^2.50. 

Peck, Charles H. The Jacksonian Epoch. Harpers, New York. 
$2.50. 

Pellew, George. John Jay. American Statesmen Series. Hough- 
ton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. ^1.25. 

Phelan, James. History of Tennessee. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 
Boston. $2.00. 

Phisterer, Frederick. Statistical Record of the Armies of the 
United States. Campaigns of the Civil War, Supplementary Vol. 
Scribners, New York. $1.00. 

Pittenger, William. Daring and Suffering. [Also rewritten and 
republished under varying titles : " Capturing a Locomotive," and " The 
Great Locomotive Chase."] Penn Pub. Co., Philadelphia. $1.25. 

Political Science Quarterly. Edited by the political science 
faculty of Columbia University. Ginn & Co., Boston, jfo.50. 

Pond, George A. The Shenandoah Valley in 1864. Campaigns of 
the Civil War, XL Scribners, New York. $i.co. 

Poor, Henry V. Manual of the Railroads of the United States for 
[various years]. H. V. & N. W. Poor, New York. $10.00. 

Prescott, George B. Electricity and the Electric Telegraph. 8th 
ed., revised and enlarged. 2 vols, Appleton, New York. $7.00. 

Preston, Howard W., Editor. Documents illustrative of American 
History. 1 606-1863. Putnams, New York. $1.20. 

QuiNCY, Edmund. Life of Josiah Quincy. Little, Brown & Co., 
Boston. $3.00 net. 

QuiNCY, Josiah. Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. S. S. 
Rider, Boston. 

Rhode Island. Records of the Colony. Edited by J. R. Bartlett. 
10 vols. Providence. $12.50. 

Rhodes, James Ford. History of the United States from the Com- 
promise of 1850. Vols. 1-4. Macmillan, New York. $2.50 net. 

Richardson, Charles F, American Literature, 1607-1885. 2 vols. 
Putnams, New York. Each $3.00. 

Richardson, James D. A Compilation of the Messages and Papers 
of the Presidents, 1 789-1897. 10 vols. Government Printing Office, 
Washington. 



XXVI LIST OF WORKS REFERRED TO. 

RiDPATH, John C. Life and Work of James A. Garfield. Jones, 
Cincinnati. 

Rives, William C. Life and Times of James Madison. 3 vols. 
Little, Brown & Co., Boston. $10.50. 

Roberts, Charles G. D. History of Canada. L. C. Page & Co., 
Boston $2.00 net. 

Roberts, Ellis H. New York. American Commonwealths Series. 
2 vols. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. $2.50. 

Robinson, Rowland E. Vermont: A Study of Independence. 
American Commonwealths Series. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. 
$1.25. 

Roosevelt, Theodore. Gouverneur Morris. American Statesmen 
Series. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. $1.25. 

The Naval War of 1S12. Putnams, New York. $2.50. 

New York. Historic Towns Series. Longmans, New York. $1.25. 

Thomas Hart Benton. American Statesmen Series. Houghton, 

Mifflin & Co., Boston. $1.25. 

The Winning of the West. 4 vols. Putnams, New York. Each 

$2.50. 

Ropes, John Codman. The Army under Pope. Campaigns of the 
Civil War, IV. Scribners, New York. $1.00. 

The Story of the Civil War. Parts 1-2. [1861-1862.] 2 vols. 

Putnams, New York. Pt. i, $1.50; pt. 2, $2.50. 

Routledge, James. Chapters in the History of Popular Progress. 
1660-1820. Macmillan, London. i6s. 

Sabine, Lorenzo. Biographical Sketches of the Loyalists of the 
American Revolution. 2 vols. Little, Brown & Co., Boston. $y.oo. 

Sainsbury, W. Noel, Editor. Calendar of State Papers [Great 
Britain]. Colonial Series : America and West Indies. 4 vols. London. 

Sargent, Nathan. Public Men and Events, from . . . 1817 to 1853. 
2 vols. Lippincott, Philadelphia. $6.00. 

Schaff, Philip. Progress of Religious Freedom. Scribners, New 
York. $1.50. 

Schoolcraft, Henry R. Notes on the Iroquois. Pease & Co., 
Albany. 

Schouler, James. History of the United States of America under 
the Constitution. Revised edition. 6 vols. Dodd, Mead & Co., New 
York. $13.50. 

Schurz, Carl. Abraham Lincoln. An Essay. Houghton, Mifflin 
& Co., Boston. $1.50. 

Life of Henry Clay. American Statesmen Series. 2 vols. 

Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. $2.50. 

Schuyler, George W. Colonial New York. 2 vols. Scribners, 
New York. $10.00 net. 



LIST OF WORKS REFERRED TO. xxvii 

Sedgwick, Ellery. Thomas Paine. Beacon Biographies Series. 
Small, Maynard & Co., Boston. $0.75. 

Seeley, Sir J. R. The Expansion of England. 2d edition. Mac- 
millan, London. 4s. 6d. 

Short History of Napoleon the First. Little, Brown & Co., Bos- 
ton. ^1.50. 

Seward, William H. Works. Edited by George E. Baker. New 
edition. 5 vols. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. Each $3.00. 

Sharpless, Isaac. Two Centuries of Pennsylvania History. Lippin- 
cott, Philadelphia. ^1.25 net. 

Shepard, Edward M. Martin Van Buren. American Statesmen 
Series. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. $1.25. 

Sherman, W. T. Memoirs, written by himself. With an appendix, 
bringing his life down to its closing scenes, by Hon. James G. Blaine. 
2 vols. D. Appleton & Co., New York. $5.00. 

Siebert, Wilbur H. The Underground Railroad from Slavery to 
Freedom. With an introduction by Albert Bushnell Hart. Macmillan, 
New York. $4.00. 

SIMMS, William Gilmore. Life of Francis Marion. Derby, New 
York. 

Sloane, William Milligan. The French War and the Revolution. 
American History Series. Scribners, New York. $1.00 net. 

Smith, Edward P. Incidents of the United States Christian Com- 
mission. Lippincott, Philadelphia. $3.00 net. 

Smith, Captain John. Works, 1608-1631. Edited by Edward Arber. 
Birmingham. 

Smith, Goldwin. The Moral Crusader, William Lloyd Garrison. 
Funk & Wagnalls, New York. $1.00. 

Soley, James Russell. The Blockade and the Cruisers. The Navy 
in the Civil War, I. Scribners, New York. $1.00. 

Spaulding, Elbridge G. History of the Legal Tender Paper Money 
issued during the Great Rebellion. Buffalo. 

Stanwood, Edward. History of the Presidency. Houghton, Mif- 
flin & Co., Boston. I2.50. 

Stevens, John Austin. Albert Gallatin. American Statesmen 
Series. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. $1.25. 

Still]^, Charles J. History of the United States Sanitary Commis- 
sion. Lippincott, Philadelphia. $3.50. 

Life and Times of John Dickinson. Lippincott, Philadelphia. 

$3.00 net. 

Stith, William. History of the First Discovery and Settlement of 
Virginia. Sabin reprint. New York. $7.50. 

Stone, William L. Life of Joseph Brant (Thayendanegea), includ- 
ing the Border Wars of the American Revolution. 2 vols. Phinney & 
Co., Buffalo. ^5.00, 



xxviii LIST OF WORKS REFERRED TO. 

Storey, Moorfield. Charles Sumner. American Statesmen Series. 
Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. $1.25. 

Sumner, William Graham. Andrew Jackson as a Public Man. 
American Statesmen Series. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. $1.25. 

The Financier [Robert Morris] and the Finances of the American 

Revolution. 2 vols. Dodd, Mead & Co., New York. $5.00. 

History of American Currency. Holt & Co., New York. $3.00. 

History of Banking in the United States. [Vol. i of " History of 

Banking in all the Leading Nations."] Journal of Commerce, New 
York. 

SwETT, John. American Public Schools. American Book Co., New 
York. $1.00 net. 

Tarbell, Ida M. Life of Abraham Lincoln, drawn from original 
sources. 2 vols. McClure, PhilHps & Co., New York. $5.00. 

Taussig, F. W. The Silver Situation in the United States. Putnams, 
New York. $0.75. 

Tariff History of the United States. A Series of Essays. 4th 

edition. Putnams, New York. ^1.25. 

Thoreau, Henry D. A Yankee in Canada. With Anti-Slavery 
and Reform Papers. J. R. Osgood & Co., Boston. $1.50. 

Thurston, Robert H. History of the Growth of the Steam Engine. 
International Scientific Series. Appleton & Co., New York. $2.50. 

Thwaites, Reuben Gold. The Colonies, 1492-1750. Epoch Series. 
Longmans, New York. $1.25. 

TocQUEViLLE, Alexis de. Democracy in America. Trans, by 
Henry Reeve, as revised and annotated from the author's last edition by 
Francis Bowen. With an introduction by Daniel C. Oilman. 2 vols. 
Century Co., New York. I5.00. 

Tower, Charlemagne, Jr. The Marquis de Lafayette in the 
American Revolution. 2 vols. Lippincott, Philadelphia. $8.00. 

Treaties and Conventions concluded between the United 
States and Other Powers since July 4, 1776. Government Print- 
ing Office, Washington. 

Trent, William P. Southern Statesmen of the Old Regime. 
Crowell & Co., New York. $2.00. 

Tucker, George F. The Monroe Doctrine. A concise history of its 
origin and growth. George B. Reed, Boston. $1.25 net. 

TucKERMAN, Bayard. Life of General Lafayette. 2 vols. Dodd, 
Mead & Co., New York. $3.00. 

Tudor, William. Life of James Otis. Wells & Lilly, Boston. 

TwiTCHELL, Joseph Hopkins. John Winthrop. Makers of Amer- 
ica Series. Dodd, Mead & Co., New York. $1.00, 

Tyler, Moses Coit. History of American Literature, 1 607-1 765. 
2 vols. Putnams, New York. Each $2.50. 



LIST OF WORKS REFERRED TO. xxix 

Tyler, Moses Coit. Literary History of the American Revolution, 
1 763-1 783. 2 vols. Putnams, New York. Each $3.00. 

Patrick Henry. American Statesmen Series. Houghton, Mifflin 

& Co., Boston. ^1.25. 

Upham, Charles Wentworth. Salem Witchcraft. 2 vols. Wig- 
gin, Boston. 

Walker, Francis A. The Making of the Nation. 1783-1817. 
Scribners, New York. $1.00 net. 

Money. Holt, New York. $2.00 net. 

Walker, Williston. History of the Congregational Churches in 
the United States. American Church History Series. Scribners, New 
York. $2.00 net. 

Washington, Booker T. The Future of the Negro. Small, May- 
nard & Co., Boston. ^1.50. 

Washington, George. Writings, collected and edited by Worth- 
ington Chauncey Ford. 14 vols. Putnams, New York. $70.00. 

Watts, John. Facts of the Cotton Famine. Simpkin, Marshall & 
Co., London. 

Webb, Alexander S. The Peninsula. McClellan's Campaign of 
1862. Campaigns of the Civil War, III. Scribners, New York. $1.00. 

Webster, Daniel. Works. 6 vols. Little & Brown, Boston. $18.00. 

Weeden, William B. Economic and Social History of New Eng- 
land. 1620-1789. 2 vols. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. $4.50, 

Wharton, Francis. Digest of the International Law of the United 
States. 3 vols. Government Printing Office, Washington. 

Editor. Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United 

States. 6 vols. Government Printing Office, Washington. 

White, Horace. Money and Banking, illustrated by American His- 
tory. Ginn & Co., Boston. $1.50 net. 

Whiting, William. War Powers under the Constitution of the 
United States. 43d ed. Lee & Shepard, Boston. $3.50. 

Williams, George H. History of the Negro Race in America. 
1 61 9-1 880. Putnams, New York. $4.00. 

Wilson, Woodrow. Congressional Government. A Study in Amer- 
ican Politics, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. $1.25. 

Division and Reunion, 1829-1889. Epochs of American History. 

Longmans, New York. $1.25. 

Winsor, Justin. Cartier to Frontenac. 1534-1700. Houghton, Mif- 
flin & Co., Boston. $4.00. 

The Mississippi Basin. The Struggle in America between the 

English and the French. 1697-1763. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. 
$4.00. 

The Westward Movement. The Colonies and the Republic west 

of the Alleghanies. 1 763-1798. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. $4.00. 



XXX LIST OF WORKS REFERRED TO. 

WiNSOR, Justin, Edito)-. Memorial History of Boston. 4 vols. 
Ticknor & Co., Boston. $25,00. 

Editor. Narrative and Critical History of America. 8 vols. 

Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. $44.00 net. 

WoRMELEY, Katharine Prescott. The Other Side of War with 
the Army of the Potomac : Letters from the Headquarters of the U. S. 
Sanitary Commission during the Peninsular Campaign in Virginia in 
1862. Ticknor, Boston. 



ATLAS OF HISTORICAL MAPS 



Map I 




I 



' iy tht hyh and imqhe^- 'Pntut 
J:rinct.ofjt-cilt '!Bntaim^j> 




SMITH'S MA] 



Map III 




Map IV 




Map V 



04°30' 



50 '30 ' 




> 



NEW ENGLAND COLONIES 
CONTIGUOUS TERRITORY NORTHWARD 
TO THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE 



Scale of Miles 



50 



100 



150 



ni Greenwich 64 ^30 ' 



02' 



59 ''SO' G 



Map VI 




Map VII 




SOUTHERN COLONIES 

TO TUK 

WAR OF INDEPENDENCE 



Sonlf of Miles 



80° C Longitude Wcat 78° D from Greenwich 70° E 



Map VI 11 




Map IX 




Map X 




From N. U. Brooka'a Complete Uistorj of the Mexican War published io 1849. 



.Map XII 







, -^^ ^Cbant 11 '.V ^' " \' ^ ^ULH 

S'-^v. • i ALvri-^^-^'i'^* TON ' y^ ' 

11 r tax 








102- Longit; 




Slavery extinguished by State aetiou, 1780-1791). 
] Slavery prohibited by Ordinauee of 1787. 
] Slaverj- prohibited by Missouri Comjiroiiiise Aet. 1820. 
J Slaverj- extinguished by Mexiean Law, 1829-1S37. 

Slavery exeluded by Act Organizing Territory of Oregon, 
J .Slavery admitted by the Compromise Acts of 1850. 

Slavery admitted by the Kansas-Nebraska Act, 1854. 
3 Slaver}' admitted by the Dred Scott Decision, 1857. 

] Slavery abolished by State action or (in Kentucky) by the 13tli Amendment, 186.J-1805. 
J Slavery abolished by President's Proclamation, 18(3. and by State action, I860. 



Map XIV 



st from 92° Greenwich 87 




California, in 1850, Minnesota, in 1858, Oregon, in 1859, 
and Kansas in 18G1, adopted State constitutions which 
prohibited slavery. By Act of Congress in 1862 it was 
extinguished and prohibited in all the countrj- then re- 
maining in the territorial State which included eveiy 
region atfected by the Compromise Acts of 1850, the 
Kansas-Nebraska Act. and the Dred Scott Decision. 



I 



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Elements of the 

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Their growth from 

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HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



INTRODUCTION. 

DISCOVERY AND EARLY EXPLORATION OF AMERICA. 

The Voyages of the Northmen. In a certain sense it is right 
to credit Columbus with the discovery of America ; for his 
voyage made the western hemisphere known to Europe, and 
led to its possession by peoples from the other side of the 
world ; but he was not the first navigator from Europe who 
saw and touched American shores. There is no longer a 
doubt that bold Northmen of the tenth and eleventh centu- 
ries, who had made their way from Norway to the Orkney 
and Shetland islands, and then to the Faroe Islands, Ice- 
land, and Greenland, did finally sail on toward the west and 
find America. The first to do this is said to have xet/ 
been Leif Ericson, or Leif, son of Eric the Red, -^»'*^«o"- 
whose voyage was made in the year looo, with a single ship 
and a crew of thirty-five men. Others followed, and a col- 
ony was attempted, at some place which Leif had named 
Vinland, because he found wild grapes there, as well as 
good timber, which the Greenlanders and Icelanders de- 
sired. The colony failed, and further voyages beyond Green- 
land were given up ; but the story of what had been done 
and seen in an unknown land survived. So far as is known, 
that story was not put into writing, among the " sagas," or 
narratives of the Icelanders, until the fourteenth century, — 
more than three hundred years after Leif made his voyage. 
Historical accuracy in the saga is not, therefore, to be sup- 



2 INTRODUCTION. 

posed ; but many reasons exist for believing that its main 
statements are true. 

Geographical Ideas in the Fifteenth Cetitury. If Icelanders 
or any others knew of a world beyond the Atlantic before 
Columbus made his way to it, their knowledge does not seem 
to have reached any in Europe who gave it thought, and it 
had no effect on geographical ideas. Those ideas were pre- 
pared already for the undertaking of Columbus, since many 
learned men, from the time of Aristotle, had believed the 
earth to be a globe, and that one might go westward as well 
as eastward to Asia, if the great ocean could be traversed, 
and if no other obstacles were found. In fact, the project of 
a vovage westward, to seek the Asiatic coasts on the other 
side of the world, wns urged on the king of Portugal by Tosca- 
nelli, a famous Italian astronomer and geographer, in 1474, 
when Columbus, then in Portugal, most probably had his in- 
terest in the subject first roused. It is not for originating 
the thought of such a voyage that Columbus deserves his 
great fame, but for acting on it and giving effect to it, with 
a courage and a resolute perseverance which nothing could 
defeat. 

The Desire in Europe to reach Asia by Sea. The desire in 
Europe to reach southern and eastern Asia, and the islands 
in that part of the globe, by sea, had been growing for years. 
China (then called Cathay\ Japan (Cipango), India, and 
the islands south of it, were the countries out of which came 
a very large part of the chief luxuries of the age, such as 
spices, gums, precious stones, ivory, ebony, cotton fabrics, 
and silks. They were countries about which many fables 
were believed and few facts known ; they were supposed to be 
kingdoms of measureless wealth. For centuries the grand 
prize of commerce — the greatest of all sources of wealth — 
^,.^.,._ had been the trade of Europe with those regions of 
land the Far East, carried on over land-routes from the 

with the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean 
i:ast. ^y^^ t|-,g Bi^-ick Sea, and managed by merchants of 
Alexandria, Constantinople, Venice, Genoa, and other Medi- 



DISCOVERY AND EARLY EXPLORATION. 3 

terranean cities. But the old Asiatic land-routes of that 
trade, and the whole eastern part of the Mediterranean, had 
fallen entirely, at last, under the control of the Turks, who 
capped their conquests by taking Constantinople, in 1453. 
Moreover, commerce on the western Mediterranean was har- 
assed by increasing swarms of pirates from the Barbary 
coasts. If a practicable ocean-route to the East did actually 
exist, every year added urgency to the need of its discovery 
and use. 

But though Europe, in the last quarter of the fifteenth cen- 
tury, was shaking off the torpid ignorance of the Middle 
Ages, the spirit of enterprise was not yet easily waked. One 
man, in Portugal, a son of the king, had been moved by that 
spirit long before. This was Prince Henry, called 
"the Navigator," who spent his life in promoting Henry of 
expeditions down the west African coast, to find the J^»rtu- 
southern end of that continent and sail round it to 
the lands of the East. From 1418 to 1463, when he died. 
Prince Henry strove at this work, sending ship after ship ; but 
the farthest point they had reached at his death was a little 
beyond the Gambia River, — not a fourth of the distance to 
the goal at which he aimed. He had trained the Portuguese, 
however, for tasks of ocean exploration, and they did not 
give them up. They pushed their voyages down the African 
coast, and began to think, moreover, of the practicability of 
reaching the samd end by a westward voyage. 

T/ie Voyages of Columbus. Maritime enterprise was at this 
stage in Portugal when, at some time between 1470 and 1474, 
Christopher Columbus, the Genoese mariner and map-maker, 
came to Lisbon and found employment there. It is evident 
that the project of a voyage westward to the Indies took pos- 
session of his mind soon after he reached Lisbon, if it had 
not done so before ; for he wrote to Toscanelli in 1474, seek- 
ing advice and information, and received an encouraging reply. 
The means for carrying out his project, however, were not 
to be obtained in Portugal, and he went to Spain. After many 
years of weary effort in the two countries, he won Queen Isa- 



4 INTRODUCTION. 

bella of Castile to belief in his plans. An agreement was 
(\>inm. signed in the spring of 1492, under which he set 
hi,sati<i sail from Palos on the 3d of the following August, 
with a little fleet of three small caravels, not one of 
which was tit for an Atlantic voyage. 

The ships furnished to Columbus had been taken for the 
expedition from unwilling owners by royal command ; debtors 
and criminals had been released from prison to make up some 
considerable part of a reluctant crew; and it is splendid proof 
of commanding qualities in the great explorer that he was 
able, in such circumstances, to keep mutiny suppressed for 
ten weeks, every day of which was changing the fears of his 
men into despair. Before September ended he was in extreme 
peril from the murderous thoughts that were working in the 
minds of his crew ; yet his strong spirit kept them in awe 
until the night of the nth of October (Old Style, being the 
Land -Oth, New Style\ when a light was seen, which 
discov- indicated land. At two o'clock next mornins: the 
land itself was in view, and at daybreak the happy 
explorer, with many of his companions, now penitent and ad- 
miring, went on shore in formal state, and took possession in 
the name of the queen of Castile. 

Columbus found himself on a small island, now known to 
have been one of the Bahamas ; but which of those islands 
it was is a question in dispute. He supposed that he had ar- 
rived in the neighborhood of Cathay ; and when, cruising south- 
ward, he coasted Cuba and reached Hayti, he concluded the 
latter to be Cipango (though he named it Espanola — Little 
Spain), and the former to be a part of the mainland on the 
Asiatic side of the world. He was puzzled by not finding 
the cities and the splendors he expected, but does not seem 
to have been shaken in his belief. His explorations were 
checked on Christmas day by the wrecking of his principal 
ship, and this decided him to return to Spain. He reached 
Palos on the 15th of March, 1493, after a stormy and perilous 
voyage. 

The return was triumphant ; the joy and pride in Spain 



DISCOVERY AND EARLY EXPLORATION 5 

were intense ; the excitement amongst navigators and geo- 
graphers, when news of what Columbus had accom- 
plished went slowly through Europe, must have been netvsin 
very great ; and yet nobody realized what he had ^^*n»«' 
done. Nobody suspected that he had found a New World. 
He was supposed to have reached, as he himself believed, 
some undetermined part of eastern Asia, which might be 
called vaguely " the Indies ; " and the lands of his discovery 
were so described. It followed naturally that their inhab- 
itants were called " Indians ; " and thus the aboriginal people 
of the western hemisphere received a meaningless name. 

To secure and establish Spanish sovereignty over the coun- 
tries which Columbus had discovered, and over further dis- 
coveries in the western ocean, an immediate application was 
made to the pope for such a grant as the head of the Chris- 
tian church was then believed to have power to make, in 
disposal of heathen lands. Previous popes had made similar 
grants to the kings of Portugal, covering every region of hea- 
thendom that their ships might reach. The reign- 
ing pope, Alexander VI., now issued two bulls, or landby 
papal edicts, on the 3d and 4th of May, 1493, vesting *'** 
in the Spanish crown a like sovereignty over coun- 
tries then or thereafter found in the western ocean, west of a 
meridian line drawn 100 leagues west of the Azores and Cape 
Verde Islands, so far as such countries were not occupied 
already by Christian powers. Thus Portugal and Spain had 
papal authority for claiming all the regions of the earth which 
Christendom was then beginning to discover ; and papal au- 
thority in those days was hard to dispute. By a treaty signed 
atTordesillas, in 1494, the Spanish and Portuguese sovereigns 
moved the dividing meridian between their papal grants to a 
point 370 leagues (about mo geographical miles; west of 
the Cape V^erde Islands, making it, according to later compu- 
tations, the meridian of 47'^ 32' 56" west of Greenwich. 

To Columbus his grand discovery brought nothing but a 
harassed and embittered life. He returned to Hispaniola in 
1493, with a fleet of seventeen ships, bearing a large party of 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

eager adventurers, who expected to receive fortunes at his 

hands. He explored diliL;ently for the great cities 

bus's and rich peoples of Cipango and Cathay, and they 

si'coini ^^.^j-g nowhere to be found. He discovered Jamaica 

voi/agc. 

and other islands, but they gave hmi nothing that 
he sought. A little gold was picked up, here and there, 
but not much. His disappointed colonists grew angry and 
vindictive, and the sorely tried viceroy (so he had been com- 
missioned) had to use his authority with a hard hand. Some 
of the discontented stole ships and returned to Spain, with 
charges against him. Then came war with the natives, al- 
ready plundered and oppressed. 

In the spring of 1496 Columbus returned to Spain, and was 
absent from America for more than two years. On the voy- 
age which brought him back, in 149S, he took a more 
bus's southerly course, and came to the island of Trini- 
third j^.^j^j ^^^^ ^\^Q coast of South America, at the delta of 
the Orinoco. He saw that a river which discharged 
so much water as the Orinoco must flow through a continent ; 
but he never doubted that the continent was either Asia, or a 
neighbor to Asia, lying close to it on the south. He reached 
his colony late in the summer, and found affairs there in worse 
condition than when he left. For two years he struggled with 
rebellion, fomented and encouraged by enemies at the Spanish 
court. The latter succeeded tinally in having one Bobadilla 
, , sent out to investigate and deal with the troubles, 

bus in and the powers given to that otftcial were such that 
chams. |^^ ^^^^j. (^oluiubus lioiiie in chains. The foul indig- 
nitv was somewhat repaired by Queen Isabella, who gave a 
kind reception to the great explorer, now old and worn ; but 
he was never restored to the viceroyalty of the lands he had 
added to the dominions of Castile. 

He was given, however, a small and poor fleet of four cara- 
,, , vels, with which to make a fourth explorins: vovaire. 

CoJum- ... r t^ , c» 

bus's This time, sailing in May, 1502, he found the Cen- 
deatfi. ^^..^1 American coast, and examined it for some dis- 
tance, attempting to establish a colony at Veragua, without 



DISCOVERY AND EARLY EXPLORATION. / 

success. In returning to Spain, which he reached in Novem- 
ber, 1504, he suffered great hardships; and on the 20th of 
May, 1506, he died. 

The Rounding of Africa by the Portuguese. Columbus died 
in the beh'ef that he had accomplished what he set out to do, 
reaching eastern Asia by sailing towards the west. Mean- 
time, the Portuguese explorers had actually realized the dream 
of Prince Henry, and the national ambition of eighty years, 
having sailed round Africa into the Indian Ocean and so to 
Hindustan. The first of their captains to reach and pass the 
southern extremity of the African continent was Bar- jiarthoi- 
tholomew Diaz, in i486, but he did no more. In omew 
1497-93 Vasco da Gama made the complete voyage to fi^ji 
India, reaching Calicut, on the Malibar coast. This ^««'''> '^« 
achievement had effects of more immediate impor- 
tance than those coming from what Columbus had done. It 
turned the rich trade of the East into a new channel and into 
new hands. It practically ended the great commercial career 
of Venice and other cities of the Mediterranean vSea. It 
seated the wider commerce of the world on the Atlantic coast 
of Europe, and that change had much to do with the sub- 
sequent rise of Holland and England as the leading maritime 
powers. 

The Voyages of John Cabot. Columbus was alone in the 
glory of his voyages to the western waters of the Atlantic 
until 1497. Then John Cabot, an Italian, residing at Bristol, 
England, commissioned by the English king, Henry VII., to 
explore the wide ocean, steered a course so straight jyucftv- 
westward that it brought him, as is now believed, to ^ryofthe 
the coast of Labrador. He sighted the coast on the can con. 
24th of June, 1497, being the first of the fifteenth ^*»*«'»*<- 
century explorers to see the American mainland. In the 
next year he commanded a second expedition, which is be- 
lieved to have reached the American coast at some point 
south of Labrador, and skirted it thence to Florida ; but the 
scant records of the voyage are obscure. Until recently it 
was understood that this second voyage was commanded by 



c> INTRODUCTION. 

Sebastian Cabot, a son of John ; but research has substan- 
tially proved that John Cabot was the explorer in both years. 
The Cabot discovery and coasting exploration gave grounds 
to the English crown for claiming sovereignty over most of 
the North American continent, though the claim was not put 
forward for many years. 

Tt-s/un'us, and the Kaviitig of America. Another Italian 
navigator, Amerigo Vespucci (or Americus Vespucius, as his 
name was latinized), is believed by some historians to have 
coasted a long stretch of the southern part of North America 
in 1497-98. It is well known that Vespucius made voyages 
to America in 1499 ^"^ 1501-02 ; but, in a letter that was 
published in Europe not long after he returned from the lat- 
ter voyage, Vespucius gave accounts of an earlier expedition, 
y^.^ ^_ i" 1497-9S, which he had accompanied as pilot and 
cius's astronomer. His story of it led Humboldt and 
xointins. Qjii^j-g^ jj^ later times, to believe that he had then 
explored Central and North American coasts from Honduras 
to Florida. Other historical investigators have satisfied 
themselves that Vespucius never made the voyage in ques- 
tion, and that his account of it is false. We will not attempt 
to decide which view is correct. 

Americus Vespucius had scholarly friends in Europe who 
made his voyages widely known. One of them, Martin 

Waldseemiiller, a professor of ^eographv at St. Die, 
niii/irr-n i-orrauie, in a book published in 1507, suggesteo 
sufrjcs- ^1^.^^ ^j^g continent (South American) coasted by 

Vespucius in 1501-02, which he had described as 
" Mundus Novus," a New World, should be named in his 
honor, America. It was supposed to be a country quite 
distinct from the lands that Columbus had found, the latter 
being Asiatic, while Vespucius, going beyond the equator, 
had come upon a world that the ancients never knew. Map- 
makers and globe-makers took up the suggestion, and, with- 
out any common agreement or formal action of any kind on 
the subject, it came to pass that the name America was fixed, 
first to the southern and then to the northern of the two con- 
tinents of the New World. 



DISCOVERY AND EARLY EXPLORATION. 9 

Early Explorations and Conqnests. Many years passed 
after the death of Columbus before the Spaniards, gold-hunt- 
ing and exploring around the Gulf of Mexico and the Carib- 
bean Sea, could be shaken from the belief that they were in 
Asian lands and waters. Yet Vasco Nunez de Balboa, then 
leader of a settlement at Darien, crossed the mountains of 
the narrow isthmus in 15 13, saw the great Pacific j^^^^^^^_ 
Ocean, and waded into its waters to proclaim that fry of the 
he took possession of the whole sea for the kings of '^'^'>**- 
Castile. In the previous year, Juan Ponce de Leon explored 
Florida (seeking a fabled Fountain of Youthj, and learned 
something of its extent. In 15 19 Alvarez de Pineda entered 
the mouth of the Mississippi and was on the lower 
waters of the enormous stream for no less than six j,f.fyrtl 
v/eeks. In the same year Hernando Cortes landed -f**'^'^«'«> 

'' fJfjrteH. 

on the Mexican coast and began that rapacious con- 
quest of a half-civilized people, the story of which is more 
thrilling than any romance. By that time it was impossible 
not to suspect that the mass of land which had such coast 
lines, such varieties of people, and so stupendous a river, 
might be one that blocked the sea between Europe and Asia, 
and signified a larger girth to the world than geographers 
had been reckoning upon. Such suspicions were more than 
strengthened when a few survivors of the marvellous and 
terrible voyage of Magalhaes (called Magellan in English 
speech; returned to Spain in 1522, with news of an 
actual circumnavigation of the globe, — of the dis- lan'n 
covery of Magellan's straits at the southern end of ^'*y'^if^ 

J o rotund 

Vespucius's New World ; of the crossing of the the 
great "South Sea;" of the finding of the Philip- '^''"•'*'- 
pines and the Moluccas, or Spice Islands ; and of the home- 
ward voyage thence by the Cape of Good Hope. The exist- 
ence of a wide ocean between the imagined Indies and Cathay 
of Columbus and the real Indies and Cathay began to be un- 
derstood. But no conception was yet formed of the magnitude 
of the lands which lay between the Atlantic and that farther 
sea. The new continent was believed to have not much 



lO INTRODUCTION. 

breadth, and possibly to be divided by straits, through which a 
Search passage from ocean to ocean might be found. It 
for a then became the main object of exploration for the 
westpas- next hundred years to find such a *' northwest pas- 
sage. sagc," and, after every inlet, bay, and river mouth, 
south of the Arctic Circle, had been probed, the search for 
it went on for two more centuries in the farther north. 

The French did not enter the field of exploration until 
1524, though some of their hardy fishermen had been resort- 
ing to the Newfoundland banks for a score of years, at least, 
before that date. It was an Italian, Verrazano, in the service 
Terra- oi Fraucis I., king of France (then at war with 
zano. Spain), who visited some parts of the American 
coast in the year named above, possibly sighting the mouth 
of the Hudson River, and touching New England shores ; 
but little is known of his voyage. Ten years later (1534) a 
French explorer, Jacques Cartier, entered the Gulf of St. Law- 
rence, fully believing that he had found a passage 
to the Pacific Ocean, or South Sea. Approaching 
winter drove him back, but he returned the next year and 
sailed up the St. Lawrence River, until stopped by the rapids, 
where the city of Montreal arose in after years. In 1541 an 
attempt was made by an enterprising French nobleman, Jean 
j)e la Francois de la Roque, lord of Roberval, to colonize 
Roque. ^j^g couutry discovcrcd by Cartier, and the latter was 
joined with him in a patent obtained from the king. After 
Cartier and Roberval had each in turn passed a winter on the 
St. Lawrence, they abandoned their plans. 

One Narvaez, a Spaniard, landed an expedition of 400 men, 
with So horses, on the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico, 
in 1528, hoping to find another such prize of empire 
and plunder as Cortes had won. At the end of a 
month of fruitless marching the party built boats and coasted 
to the mouth of the Mississippi, where many of them were 
wrecked and drowned. The remainder were cast ashore at 
some distance farther west, and all perished except three 
Spaniards and a negro, who were captured by the Indians, 



DISCOVERY AND EARLY EXPLORATION. II 

but contrived to make themselves feared as sorcerers, and 
were spared. For nearly eight years they wandered with the 
natives, until, in 1536, they reached a Spanish outpost in 
Mexico, having journeyed about 2000 miles. They are sup- 
posed to have travelled through Texas and Chihuahua to 
northeastern Sonora. An account of their extraor- cabeza 
dinary adventures was published afterward by one ^''^ ^«ca« 
of the party, Cabeza de Vaca, whose later career showed him 
to be no ordinary man. 

Cabeza de Vaca's experience, proving the magnitude of 
the region north of the Mexican gulf, probably stimulated a 
new expedition to explore and possess it, which started from 
Havana, Cuba, in 1539, with Fernando de Soto in command. 
Soto landed in western Florida, marched northward ^^^^ ^^^^ 
to the Savannah River, then westward, being desper- the mia. 
ately resisted by the Indians, to the Yazoo, where *****^^^** 
he spent the winter of 1541-42. In the following spring he 
crossed the Mississippi, marched up its western bank to some 
point probably beyond the Missouri state line, and then 
turned back. On the return march he died. A little more 
than half of his men made their way to Tampico, Mexico, by 
river and coast. 

Another expedition, resulting partly from Cabeza de Vaca's 
reports, and partly from other stories that were afloat at that 
time, started northward from Mexico, under Francisco de 
Coronado, in 1540, to seek for seven wonderful cities, sup- 
posed to be hidden far away in that part of the land. An ad- 
venturous monk had seen them from a distance, in the previous 
year, and imagined splendors in them which did not coro- 
exist. Coronado found these " seven cities of Ci- **«<^«- 
bola," as they were called, and they proved to be, as is now 
known, the pueblos of the Zunis, in New Mexico, one of 
which is still occupied by the tribe. Interesting as those 
pueblos are, they offered nothing that Coronado desired ; nor 
did he find anywhere the treasure that he sought, though he 
marched far beyond them, through Colorado, to the east of 
the mountains that are full of silver and gold. 



12 INTRODUCTION. 

Europe and America in the Sixteenth Century. 

Effects in Europe of the late Geographical Discoveries. The 
discovery of America and the finding of an ocean route from 
western Europe, around Africa, to the eastern seas, were 
events which produced extraordinary effects in the following 
age. Their new revelation of the world was a surprise to men's 
minds, which kindled imagination, wakened ideas, shattered 
many old bigotries of ignorance, emboldened both action and 
thought, and set a vigorous spirit of adventure and enterprise 
astir. By shifting the main seats of navigation and com- 
merce from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic coast of Eu- 
rope, they brought fresh races into the lead of the world's 
work. 

The Decay of Spain. The Spaniards and Portuguese, who 
won possession of the new fields at first and held them for 
a time, were peoples of high capacity, but unfortunate cir- 
cumstances were combining to bring a blight on their na- 
tional life. Nine years before the voyage of Columbus, the 

misguided piety of Queen Isabella had established 
quisi- the terrible tribunal of the Inquisition, which soon 
''**"* crushed intellectual freedom in Spain. After the 

death of Isabella (1504) and her husband, King Ferdinand 
(15 16), the united Spanish crowns passed to a prince, their 
grandson (called Charles I. in Spain, but better known as the 
Emperor Charles V.), who inherited additionally the wide 
dominions of Austria and Burgundy, the latter including the 

rich provinces of the Netherlands (now Holland and 
ci"nl7eT Belgium), and who was elected in 15 19 to be king of 
''"' Germany and emperor of what claimed to represent 

the great empire of old Rome. Raised thus above 
all other sovereigns of his day in prestige and power, this 
imperial king was able to destroy every vestige of political 
freedom in Spain, and that unhappy nation went slowly to 
decay, under the double despotism in state and church. 

It was ill fortune that led the Spaniards to those parts of 
America in which the precious metals were found, for the 



THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 13 

ruin of their country was hastened by the cruel plundering of 
Mexico and Peru. They could not keep the wealth of gold 
and silver that they gathered ; it ran through their hands to 
enrich other people more than themselves. It par- 

,,.r-, 11 -1 •• Effect of 

alyzed thrifty industry and substantial enterprise ; it discov- 
seduced and corrupted all classes: it was worse <;*•"'««»* 

^ . Spain, 

than wasted by kings and courts. The Spaniards 
were never colonists of their American possessions, in the 
proper sense of the term ; they were conquerors, — their ob- 
ject was not to develop, but to drain. It is more than 
possible, however, that if any other of the European peoples 
had been first to find the mines of the Aztecs and the 
Incas, the result would have been the same. 

Rise of the Dutch. In the first years of the reign of that 
emperor, Charles V., who was king of Spain, the religious 
movement known as the Protestant Reformation was begun. 
He resisted it in all parts of his dominions, but it spread with 
rapidity almost everywhere except in Spain, where the heavy 
hand of the Inquisition suppressed it at once. The same 
dreadful engine of persecution was set to work in the Nether- 
lands by Charles, with a different effect. Under j>,^|;,; 
him and his son, Philip II., the provinces so called the 
were made to suffer many years of malignant and 
horrible oppression, until they were driven to revolt. Then, 
in their struggle for freedom, they showed a fortitude, a hero- 
ism, a vigor of spirit, that have never been surpassed. They 
not only won their independence in the end, but, even in the 
midst of their long battle with the greatest power of the age, 
they mastered most of the commerce of the very seas which 
the Spaniards and Portuguese were claiming as their own. 
Portugal, by falling under the rule of Philip II., shared the 
Spanish blight, and surrendered her brief control of the trade 
of the East to the Hollanders, or Dutch, who shared it with 
the English at a later day. 

England and the English. — Origin of Puritans afid Indc- 
pcnde?its. — Eirst Colonizi7ig Attempts. England, at the time of 
the discovery of America, had just passed through a long 



14 INTRODUCTION. 

series of civil wars, by which the ancient liberties of the 
people and the parliamentary franchises that protected them 
were impaired. The sovereigns (of the Tudor family) who 
then acquired the crown were able to create a more abso- 
lute government than the country had known before, and 

the second of their line, Henry VIII., became one 
inatiou of the worst of the despots of a singularly despotic 
in jjng- ^gg, fje opposcd the Reformation with violence ; 

but, when the pope of that day refused to annul 
his marriage with a queen whom he wished to discard, he 
forced the church in England to cast off its former allegiance 
to the Roman pontiff, to assume an independent character, and 
to acknowledge the king as its supreme head. Under his son, 
Edward VI., and his daughter, Elizabeth, the Church of Eng- 
land, thus organized independently, acquired a character much 
nearer to that of the Protestant or Reformed churches of the 
continent than Henry VIII. had desired ; but it retained 
more of the old forms of worship than many of its clergy and 
lay members approved. In the time of Queen Elizabeth 
there grew up a strong party in the church which aimed at 
jiise of further changes, and this party of the Puritans, as 
rurifatis j-j^g^, were styled, bore a part of great importance in 
depend- the Subsequent history, not of England alone, but of 
ents. English colonies in America as well. A smaller reli- 

gious party, called Separatists, or Independents, went further 
than the Puritans, withdrawing from connection with the 
established national church, denying the authority of govern- 
ment in matters of religion, and claiming the right of each 
Christian congregation to organize and rule itself. Some 
of these, too, made an important appearance in subsequent 
American history. 

Circumstances, in the reign of Elizabeth, brought the Eng- 
lish into conflict with Spain. Long before the conflict came 
to an acknowledged state of war, Spanish settlements in 
America and Spanish ships laden with the spoils of the New 
World were attacked and plundered in a more than half 
piratical way. It was in that lawless warfare with the Span- 



THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 15 

iards that the English really entered on their career of power 
as a maritime people ; and it was then that they began to put 
forward their own claims to America, founded on the voy- 
ages of John Cabot, the first explorer known to have reached 
the North American continent and coasted its shores. The 
practical assertion of those claims appeared first First 
in a royal patent issued to Sir Humphrey Gilbert, J^^f/n^/i 

. , . 11- attempts 

m 1578, empowermg him to occupy and colonize to found 
such territory in the New World, " not actually pos- <''^'«»'*e». 
sessed by any Christian prince," as he might choose to 
take. Sir Humphrey perished at sea, and his undertaking 
came to naught. He was followed in it by his younger half- 
brother, Walter Raleigh (afterward Sir Walter), who spent his 
fortune in repeated attempts to plant an American ^^^ 
settlement that would take root. Raleigh made a Waiter 
careful beginning in 1584, when he sent out two '* *^'^ 
ships, under capable captains, to explore and choose a site. 
They found what pleased them on the island of Roanoke, and 
made a report so favorable that Raleigh, in the following year, 
placed a colony of 108 persons there. These people remained 
a single year, and then, being visited by a cruising fleet, com- 
manded by the famous English rover, Captain Drake, they 
begged to be taken home. Raleigh, undiscouraged, sent a 
second colony to the same ground in 1587. For three years 
thereafter, in consequence of the war with Spain, this settle- 
ment was reached by no ship, and when, in 1590, the island 
was visited once more, not a vestige of the unfortunate col- 
onists could be found. Their fate is unknown ; but a surviv- 
ing remnant of the Indians who were neighbor to them (the 
Croatans) are said to show signs even now, in their names, 
their language, and their bodily features, which intimate that 
some, at least, of the lost colonists were taken into the tribe. 
Raleigh's means had been exhausted, and colonizing enter- 
prise became nearly extinct in England for a score of years. 
But English claims to the greater part of North 
America were maintained, and the whole region 
was named Virginia, in honor of the English *' virgin queen." 



l6 INTRODUCTION. 

French Hui:;ucnot Colonics in America. In France the Re- 
formation movement of the sixteenth century gave rise to a 
Ions: series of reliiiious civil wars between the Protestants 
(called Huguenots) and the CathoUcs, who adhered to the 
ancient cluuch and its papal head. The latter prevailed, 
and the Huguenots, at ditTerent periods, were made to suiter 
severely at their hands. As a moans of escape from their 
troubled life in France, emigration to America was recom- 
mended by Admiral Coligny, the Huguenot leader, and three 
attempts at colonization were made, in 1555, 1562, and 1564. 
The Canada region, which France claimed as the discovery 
of Cartier, was barred to them, and they were forced to tres- 
pass on the claims of some other nation in seeking a home. 
Their first undertaking was on the bay of Rio de Janeiro, in 
^ .. Brazil, where their settlement was suppressed by the 

ipnj'scoi- Portuguese. Coligny then planted a colony on Port 
Royal Sound, or Broad River, in what is now South 
Carolina; but it endured the hardships of the wilderness 
only one year. His third colony was placed on the St. John's 
River, in Florida, and this, the most sadly fated of all, was 
savagely destroyed by the Spaniards (1565), who butchered 
every man, woman, and child, about seven hundred in all. 
That bloodv deed gave no offence to the French government, 
but was avenged by a private citizen, Dominic de Gourgues, 
who recaptured the forts which the Huguenots had built on 
the St. John's, and slew the Spaniards in them, to the last 
man. 

The Aboriginal Inhabitaxi^ of North America. 

Sfdfc of the Tribes when First Kncncn. Little or nothing 
is known of the life of mankind in this western hemisphere 
before Columbus made his memorable voyage to it in 1492. 
Some reasonable conjectures are founded on facts learned 
then and since, but no actual knowledge of the aboriginal 
people of America prior to that time can be said to exist. 
Numerous tribes of a race very different from any seen in 



ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS. 1/ 

other parts of the world were found inhabiting the two con- 
tinents and the neighboring islands, and, while most of thenn 
were savage or ?jarbarous, a few had advanced to 
the half-civilized state. These latter were begin- i^rtom- 
ning a rude invention of writing by pictures mixed I'-'f^u*- *'f 

Itidiang. 

with signs, but they had not yet made it a means of 
preserving the records of their past. In the proper sense of 
the term history, the History of America begins, therefore, 
with the arrival from Europe of people who practised the re- 
cording art. Behind it lies an undoubtedly long "prehis- 
toric " time, of which some glimpses have been obtained by 
a careful study of relics, remains, traditions, myths, lan- 
guages, customs, and religious beliefs. These furnish facts 
of a kind from which much can be inferred that is probable, 
but little, after all, that is not open to frequent questioning 
and dispute. 

The tribes and confederacies of tribes found in different 
parts of the western continents and islands differed widely 
in character, in condition, and in language ; but nearly all 
scientific men now believe that they came from one orifjin „/ 
stock, and that no other stock or race had ever ex- Indians. 
isted in this part of the world. Furthermore, it seems to be 
a fairly well settled scientific belief that the race did fiot have 
its origin in America ; but whence its ancestry came, and at 
how remote a time, are questions much debated, on slender 
grounds of fact. We will not enter the debate. 

Until lately it was believed that large parts of this conti- 
nent, especially in the great valley of the Mississippi, had 
been inhabited once by another more civilized people, whose 
imagined empire had suffered worse than the fate of Rome, 
being obliterated so entirely by invading barbarians that no 
relic remained, except a multitude of mysterious artificial 
"mounds," scattered widely throughout the land. MoundH 
But speculation concerning those singular mounds «"'^ 
and their builders is now silenced by the systematic buUd- 
and scientific study which the United States Bureau *'''*' 
of Ethnology, organized by the government, at Washington, 



l8 INTRODUCTION. 

has brought to bear on the subject in recent years. It has 
been proved beyond doubt that the mounds in question are of 
no great antiquity; that they were the work of known aborigi- 
nal tribes ; and that they signify no state more civilized than 
that in which those tribes were found. In some instances they 
were burial mounds ; in others they were works of defence. 

If the making of pottery is taken (as suggested by the late 
Mr. Lewis H. Morgan, in his work on " Ancient Society ") for 
the mark of distinction between savage and barbarous peoples, 
the native tribes of North America were generally in the bar- 
barous state when first known to the European world. A few 
would be classed as savages, but not low in the scale ; a few 
more had risen to the rank of the half-civilized man. Not 
any had passed out of what is known as " the stone age " of 
j,j^^ culture ; the period, that is, in which weapons, tools, 

stone and other implements are made wholly or mostly of 
^^' stone. Copper, found in its pure state and easily 

worked, had come into use in many parts of the continent ; 
and even the hardening of copper into bronze, by an alloy of 
tin, is said to have been practised by some of the Mexican 
tribes, which had also learned the working of silver and gold ; 
but, even among the latter, tools and weapons of stone re- 
mained in common use. 

Many tribes, in many parts of the country, carried on some 
rude cultivation of the soil. Maize, or Indian corn, the one 
Cuitiva- cereal native to America, and cultivated more easily 
Hon of than other grains, was raised extensively ; other pro- 
ducts were pumpkins, squashes, potatoes, and beans. 
These native articles of food were welcomed by the European 
settlers when they came, and have had importance in Ameri- 
can agriculture and diet ever since. Another gift to the new- 
comers was tobacco, the liking for which was learned so 
quickly and spread so rapidly abroad that tobacco-culture 
soon became the most profitable industry of the New World. 

In their labors and in the improvement of their modes of 
life the native Americans had no domesticated animals to give 
them help, except the llama of Peru. No beasts in the north- 



ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS. I9 

ern continent appear to have been capable of domestication, 
save the wolf, from the taming of which a poor species of dog 
had been obtained. The horse is found to have had a primi- 
tive existence in North America, but the species 
became extinct ; the buffalo has proved practically domestic 
untamable ; and, in fact, the continent was sinsfu- *****" 
larly wanting in dumb helpers for man. Without 
flocks and herds, or beasts of burden, the American race was 
handicapped seriously in its rise out of primitive conditions 
of life. 

The tribes most advanced were found in Mexico, Central 
America, and Peru ; but the state of culture among them is 
now known to have been much lower than formerly was 
supposed. The Spaniards who subjugated them misunder- 
stood many things that they saw, and exaggerated many 
particulars, so that wholly wrong ideas of the native people, 
and of their social and political organization, were 
drawn from the early Spanish accounts. In Mex- of Mex- 
ico, for example, they mistook a league or confeder- ^*^^ ^^^^ 
acy of three dominant tribes for an "empire," and 
its war chief for an emperor or king. They mistook huge 
communal buildings, like the "pueblos " still existing in New 
Mexico and Arizona, — the fortress tenements of many kin- 
dred families, sometimes populated by thousands of men, 
women, and children, — they mistook these for palaces, and 
described them as evidences of royal magnificence and power. 

The facts, placed now beyond doubt by recent studies, show 
a condition that can fairly be called half-civilization, among 
the Aztec or Nahuatl tribes of Mexico, the Maya-Quiche 
tribes of Central America, and the tribes of Peru. In agri- 
culture and in some mechanical arts the Peruvians were the 
more advanced, and in their religious worship they were in- 
nocent of the human sacrifice and the cannibalism of the hide- 
ous Mexican rites ; but written language, in which the Aztecs 
and the Mayas had made beginnings, was unknown to the 
Peruvian tribes. The skill of the three peoples in architecture 
was much beyond that found elsewhere in the New World. 



20 INTRODUCTION. 

LiJiguistic Grouping of the Tribes. Many varieties of lan- 
guage were spoken by the native American tribes, most of 
which, still preserved among the survivors of the race, have 
been studied with care, especially since the formation of the 
Bureau of Ethnology, which directs those studies in a sys- 
tematic way. The result has been to find relationships of 
language, or " families of speech," which classify the numerous 
tribes within the present territory of the United States into 
fifty-seven groups, the tribes in each group speaking dialects 
of the same tongue. These linguistic families or stocks are 
mostly small, more than half of the whole number being 
located in little districts on the Pacific coast. Some, how- 
ever, were originally very large, and were spread over wide 
areas of the country ; among such the following stood first : 

1. The Algonquian stock. The many large tribes of this 
group were spread over the whole North Atlantic coast, as 
Aiffon- far south as North Carolina, and the whole interior 
q%iins. westward to the Mississippi (including Canada al- 
most entire to the Rocky Mountains), excepting a region oc- 
cupied by the Iroquois, or Huron-Iroquois, as described below. 

2. The Iroquoian stock. The fierce, aggressive tribes of 
the Iroquois had forced their way into the heart of the Algon- 
Tro- quian domain, and, when first known, were in posses- 
qxiois. gjQj^ Qf territory covering the present State of New 
York (except on the lower Hudson) and most of Pennsylvania, 
with part of Maryland, northern Ohio, eastern Michigan, the 
Canadian border of lakes Huron, Erie, and Ontario, and the 
upper waters of the St. Lawrence River. Their footing on 
the St. Lawrence was not maintained. The tribe in posses- 
sion of the Canadian peninsula, between lakes Ontario, Erie, 
and Huron, known as the Hurons or Wyandots, was Iro- 
quoian, but at enmity with the Iroquoians south of the lakes. 

In some respects, especially in political organization, the 
Iroquois were the most capable and the most advanced of all 
the natives found within the territory now covered by the 
United States. The five tribes (commonly called the Five 
Nations) of New York (Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Ca- 



ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS. 21 

yugas, Senecas) were united in a remarkable league of federal 
government, which might have given birth to a great Five Ka- 
dominating power, the seat and centre of an inde- **^"*' 
pendent civilization, if European intruders had not broken 
in upon its development when they did. According to Iro- 
quois traditions, this league of the Five Nations (afterward 
made Six Nations when the Tuscaroras were taken in) had 
existed but a short time when Columbus and those who fol- 
lowed him came first to these shores. It is believed to have 
been formed about the middle of the fifteenth century, by 
Hiawatha,^ a famous chief of the Onondagas, who deserves 
to be ranked among the great statesmen of the world. 

3. The Muskogean or Maskoki stock. This held most of 
the country south of the Tennessee and east of the jffas- 
Mississippi, to the Atlantic and the Gulf. Its greater J^oM. 
tribes were the Creeks, the Cha'htas or Choctaws, and the 
Chickasaws. 

4. The Siouan or Dakota family, whose large domain em- 
braced nearly the entire western watershed of the 
Mississippi, from the Arkansas northward, and ex- 
tended beyond to the Saskatchewan. 

5. The Caddoan or Pawnee family, whose terri- 
tory was mostly south of the Siouan, in Louisiana, 
eastern Texas, and Arkansas. 

6. The Shoshonean stock, the Shoshonean, Ute, and Co- 
manche tribes of which ranged over a great part of sho- 
the region between the Rocky Mountains and the »'*<>«««»*• 
Sierra Nevada, from northern Mexico to Oregon. 

The tribes encountered by early European settlers and ex- 
plorers, within the territory now embraced in the United 
States and Canada, were mostly those belonging to the Al- 
gonquian, Iroquoian, and Muskogean groups. 

^ Traditions of Hiawatha, picked up by Schoolcraft and other 
writers, became mixed and confused with myths that had no refer- 
ence to him, and a legend was formed on which Longfellow founded 
his poem. The Hiawatha of Iroquois history gave his name to 
the poem, but little more. 



22 INTRODUCTION. 

Physical Features of North America and their His- 
torical Influence. 

Mountain and River Systems. Why many things happened 
in American history as they did can be learned by careful 
study of Map I., at the beginning of this book, which 
shows a few of the physical features of the continent, and 
some effects that came from conditions of climate and soil. 
The conspicuous features that catch our eyes first are (i) the 
two systems of mountains, or of mountainous elevations of 
land, which lift the eastern and western sides of the continent 
to considerable heights above the wide stretch of its interior 
ground, and (2) the two mighty river systems, by Avhich that 
vast interior land is drained. Between the mountain systems 
— called Appalachian^ on the east and Cordilleran 
lat/tian ou the wcst — tlows the ^Mississippi, gathering the 
""'/ ^ *"' stupendous volume of its waters, throuirh countless 
Moun- branches, from springs in the hills of both systems, 
2000 miles apart. Along the northeastern border of 
the valley of the Mississippi is stretched the chain of the 
Great Lakes, drained to the Atlantic through the channel of 
the St. Law'rence, which skirts the eastern mountain system 
and passes round it at the north. These masses of high- 
lands on the eastern and western sides of the continent, 
and these basins and channels of water-drainage for the great 
expanse of territory between them, are the bottom facts of 
American history. The western mountains came late into 
the story ; the eastern had very much to do with the shaping 
of its earlier events. Let us note a few particulars : — 

Influences of Physical Geography on American History. 

I. Because the ranges of the Appalachian system raised a 
considerable barrier between them and the inland country, the 

1 The general name of "the Appalachian system" is given to 
the succession of ranges which bear local names in different sec- 
tions, including, for example, Cumberland Mountains, Alloghanies, 
Blue Ridge. South Mountains, Catskills, Adirondacks, Green 
Mountains, and White Mountains. 



PHYSICAL INFLUENCES. 23 

English settlements along the Atlantic were confined for a 
long period to a quite narrow coast-margin of the continent, 
where they grew compact and strong. The mountains were by 
no means impassable, even in their wilderness state. They 
were crossed by many Indian "trails," through many "gaps," 
traversed in early days by white trappers, hunters, jEnaiish 
and pioneers, and in our day they hardly check the «»* ''*« 
speed of swift trains on a dozen lines of rail. J3ut 
emigration beyond the mountairis, on any large scale, had to 
wait until the climbing footpaths of the Indian could be 
made into some kind of rude wagon-roads, and that was a 
work which needed more than a century and a half. (See 
sections 72, 77, and 149.) 

2. Because the St. Lawrence River runs the course that it 
does, and the Great Lakes of its water system lie as they do, 
the French, planting themselves on the lower banks of the 
great stream, were led by it, around and behind the French 
mountains, into the Mississippi Valley, as naturally i" «'*« 
as the English in the same period were kept out; '* *^^' 
and the circumstances of the conflict in America between the 
two peoples were shaped by that fact. (See Chapter IV. and 
the survey preceding it.) 

3. Because the long arms of the Ohio River reach into the 
hills of western Virginia and Pennsylvania, that stream drew 
the first important movement of settlers into the The Ohio 
great valley southwestwardly, connected them with ^*'^^*'y- 
the Mississippi, made their prosperity dependent on the free- 
dom of its outlet to the Gulf of Mexico, so creating an urgent 
demand for the acquisition of territory controlling the whole 
river, and doing so soon enough to catch the rare opportunity 
which came to the young nation of the United States in 1803, 
when the Louisiana territory was bought from France (see 
section 179). 

4. Because the most complete break in the Appalachian 
barrier is that made by the Mohawk and Hudson rivers, it 
followed that the first important highway of busy travel and 
traffic between the Atlantic and the Great Lakes and the Far 



24 INTRODUCTION. 

West was opened on that^ route, by the building of the Erie 
Canal, and New York, at the foot of the Hudson, 
of^'cw was thus raised to the chief place among Amen- 
lorA-. ^^^ cities. 

5. Because the climate and soil of large parts of the south- 
ern section of the country proved favorable to the cultivation 
of tobacco, cotton, and the sugar cane, which called for cheap 
labor, tending to agriculture on a large scale, it followed 
that negro slavery, existing in all the American colonies at 
first, became fixed in the structure of society at the South, 
Ncijro but not at the North, where the rude labor of the 
siavet'if. slave could seldom be made profitable in mechani- 
cal industries, or in the wheat-fields and corn-fields of the 
northern farm. Wherever slavery was profitable, self-interest 
resisted a growing moral sentiment against it ; wherever it 
was not, the opposing sentiment prevailed. Thus, on this 
subject there came to be a bitter antagonism between the two 
sections of the country, with the terrible consequence of civil 
war. 

6. But, because Nature had practically forbidden that the 
great valley of the Mississippi should be politically divided, 

and its common interests broken, the civil conflict 
forbade was dcstructivc only to that which had been its 
disunion, cause. Slavery perished ; the national unity of the 
American States was reaffirmed. 

In many other particulars, events in American history have 
taken their course from causes that lie in the physical fea- 
tures of the country, or in conditions of climate and soil, or 
in both ; but these, the more important, are enough to be 
cited in this place. 



THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH. 
1607-1688. 



CHAPTER I. 

beginnings of the early colonies. 1607-1660. 

French Settlements, i 598-1 635. 

1. The French in Canada and Acadia. 1598-1635. 
The French were earher by a few years than the English 
in renewing attempts to settle themselves and establish 
trade within the part of the New World that they claimed. 
For more than half a century after Cartier's last voyage 
(see page 10) the great domain called New France^ had 
been treated with neglect, except by Norman and Breton 
fishermen, who gathered the " harvest of the sea " in the 
Gulf of St. Lawrence and on the Newfoundland banks. 
Then, in 1598 and after, under the wise rule of Henry 
IV., several attempts at settlement were made, promoted 
by various patents or grants from the king, port Royal, 
One of them seated a colony at Port Royal, i^os.ieio. 
now Annapolis, Nova Scotia, unsuccessfully in 1605, but 
successfully in 161 o. It was established under a grant 
to the Sieur de Monts, which assumed to give him a ter- 
ritory called Acadia, extending from the 40th degree of 
north latitude to the 46th. 

1 Commonly signifying the whole dominion claimed by the French 
in North America. 



26 



THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH. 



Among those who joined fortunes with De Monts was 
Samuel de Champlain, a fine character and an able man, 
Champiain ^^^^ became the real founder of New France. 
1608-1609. jj^ j5q3^ acting with and for De Monts, he 
founded a settlement at Quebec, and entered there into 
relations with the surrounding tribes of Indians which 
had wide and. lasting historical results. 



The Algonquins 




DOMAIN OF THE NORTHERN IROQUOIS, 

of the St. Lawrence region were in alliance with the 
Hurons, immediately west of them, against the Five Na- 
tions (the Iroquoian kindred of the Hurons), who occu- 
pied what is now the State of New York (see page 20). 
To secure the friendship of the Hurons and Algonquins, 
Champlain joined their alliance, and he and his men, in 
1609, took part in an invasion of the Iroquois domain, 
entering it by way of the lake which bears his name, and 
helping to defeat the warriors of the Five Nations in 
a battle fought where Fort Ticonderoga was afterward 



BEGINNINGS OF THE EARLY COLONIES. 2/ 

built. Again and again in after years such attacks were 
repeated, until the Iroquois, the fiercest warriors on the 
continent, became deadly foes of the French. This placed 
them generally on the side of the English, when France 
and England came to blows in America (as will -be told 
hereafter), and it had not a little to do with the result of 
that strife, — especially by having prevented the French 
from pushing southward, to occupy the valley of the 
Hudson, which they were eager to do. 

2. French Fur Trade. — French Missions. Gold- 
hunting, which had ruined so many colonizing ventures, 
was soon discouraged in the region that the French ex- 
plored ; but, in fur-trading with the Indians, they found 
a pursuit as alluring and almost as promising of wealth. 
Furs, always coveted and always high-priced in Europe, 
were aboundingly supplied and eagerly exchanged by 
the northern Indians of those days for knives, hatchets, 
blankets, and glittering trinkets of trifling cost. The 
profits of the trade were large, while the methods of it 
were enticing to an adventurous and rude class of men. 
Other attractions of the Canadian country were not 
strong. The resources that it offered to plain industry, 
in its forests and its soil, received little thought for many 
years, and the fur trade was the one object of interest 
and attention in New France. The settlements created 
by it were small trading stations, outside of coureursde 
which the white population that it gave to the ^°^** 
country was mostly a wild class of cotcretirs de bois (forest- 
runners or rangers), who were the middlemen in this com- 
merce of the woods. 

The fur trade was dependent, of course, on peaceful 
and friendly relations between the Indians and Treatment 
the whites. For that reason the red men were °* iiidians. 
treated with more consideration there than elsewhere in 



28 THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH. 

America, and l^'rcnch conduct toward thorn seems favor- 
ably in contrast with that of other whites. " Spanish 
civihzation," says Mr. Parkman the historian, "crushed 
the Indian; Knglish civihzation scorned and neglected 
him ; French civilization embraced and cherished him." 
But, so far as French and English were concerned, the 
difference, perhaps, was not so much between their civ- 
ilizations as between their circumstances, which made the 
Indian a profitable neighbor in one case and a trouble- 
some one in the other. 

The interests of trade harmonized in this matter with 
the missionary spirit, which had its share everywhere 
Jesuit among the motives of European colonization, 

missions, yj^^, missionary societies of the Catholic church, 
especially that of the Jesuits, were encouraged and as- 
sisted in all ways, and they carried on among the savages 
of Canada a wonderful work, with a courage, an endur- 
ance, a self-sacrificing devotion, that have never been 
surpassed. 

English Beginnings in the South. 1606- 1642. 

3. The Virginia Company, in its Two Branches. 
1606-1609. Three voyages to the New England coast 
between 1602 and 1605, by Bartholomew Gosnold, Martin 
Bring, and George Weymouth, represent all that was done 
by English enterprise in America for seventeen years 
after Raleigh gave up his personal efforts to win a foot- 
ing for England in the New World. Then, in 1606, a 
great joint stock company for the colonization of the 
rei^ion called Viri;inia was formed and chartered 

charter, by the kinc:. Tames I. Its charter set the bound- 

1606. -^ .- , ,. \ ". , , , , ,, , 

ary ot \ irginia on the south at the 34th parallel 

of latitude (near Cape Fear), and on the north at the 

45th (the northern boundary of Vermont), and gave a 



BEGINNINGS OF THE EARLY COLONIES. 29 



hundred miles of breadth from the coast. The company 
receiving this extensive grant was divided into two 
branches, for under- 
takings in two parts 
of the great field. The 
branch authorized to 
act in the southern 
division of Virginian 
territory, with exclu- 
sive jurisdiction from 
the 34th parallel to 
the 38th, had its head- 
quarters in London, 
and is known usually 
as the London Compa- 
ny ; the other branch, 
empowered to found 
settlements in the 
north between 41° 
and 45°, was located 
in its management at 
Plymouth, and is 
spoken of as the 
Plymouth Company. 
This division of ter- 
ritory left a zone of 
three degrees between 
the fields of the two 
companies, which was 
to be open to both, on terms that were expected to put 
them in competition for the territorial prize. 

In a subsequent charter, issued in 1609, the definition 
of the territory of the London Company was somewhat 
changed. This time jurisdiction was given "from sea 




GRANT OF 1606 TO THE VIRGINIA COMPANY 
IN ITS TWO BRANCHES, AND GRANT OF 
1609 TO THE LONDON COMPANY. 

[Boundaries of tlie grant of 1606 are shown 
by dotted lines ; lieavy black lines mark the 
grant of 1609 as it was construed by the Vir- 
ginians of later times, furnishing the ground 
of their claim to a vast territory in the North- 
west.] 



30 THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH. 

to sea, west and northwest," over a strip of the conti- 
nent haviniT Old Point Comfort for its middle 



ckutK," ' on the coast and measuring two hundred miles 
in each direction therefrom. The grant ''from 
sea to sea " will not startle us if we remember that the 
continent was then supposed to be a narrow body of 
land ; but the expression " west and northwest " is not 
easily understood. Virginians in later times construed 
it to mean that their northern boundary- ran northwest- 
wardly, and they founded thereon the claim to a \-ast 
domain in the northwest (see sections 78 and 141\ 

4. The James River Colony of the London Branch. 
1 607-1 609. Ix^rh branches of the chartered company 
sent out colonists in 1607. Those sent by the Plymouth 
organization attempted a settlement (known as the Pop- 
ham Colonv> at the mouth of the Kennebec River, in 
what is now the State of Maine, and failed entirely, re- 
turning home in the following spring. The undertaking 
of the colonists from London, who went south to the 
Tames River, became successful in the end, but was 
Karelv saved from ruin at the beginning by the 
jokK enenrs* and capabilitv of one man, the famous 

Laptam John bmith. In s.mng this \\'e taist 
his o\\"n remarkable story, which some recent historians 
have discredited ; for, while it is unfortunately a fact 
that Captain Smith — strong in character as he was, re- 
solute, fearless, sagacious, high-minded, generous, clean 
in life and plain in speech — did have a magnifWng 
memor)* and a boastful pen. yet, as Dr. John Fiske has 
shown \*er\* clearly, there are more and stronger reasons 
for accepting than for rejecting the romantic incidents of 
his tale. Smith stayed with the Jamestown colonists 
little more than two years. His firm hand and com- 
manding influence kept order among them and enforced a 



BEGIXXIXGS OF THE EARLY COLONIES. 



31 




THE TAMES RIVER COLOW. 



fair treatment of the neighboring Indians, on whom the 
thriftless whites were dependent for supplies of corn. 
No sooner was he 
gone than the savages 
were provoked to hos- 
tility, and a temble 
** starving time" en- 
sued, in the winter aiid 
spring of 1 600. when 
all but 60 out of the 
500 colonists died. 

In 1600 the Lon- 
don Company under- 
went a great change. 

being much enlarged in numbers and strengthened 
in capital, having manv powerful persons and 
city guilds added to its membership list. The zation of 

, , .... London 

companv was then made a corporation, distmct company, 

1609 

from the Plymouth Company, with a new char- 
ter, as stated above. All the powers of government over 
the colony were vested in a supreme council at London, 
whose authority was to be exercised in Virginia bv a 
governor responsible to none but itself. Lender the 
autocratic government thus established a more orderly 
condition of things was brought about, and the colony 
became able to sustain itself. 

5. Tobacco Culture. — Prosperity. — Disaster. 
1612-1624. Before many years the James River colony 
began to see its \\*av to a prosperous career. It had found 
something better than gold mines, in the cultivation of 
an herb which, since America was discovered, all the 
world had been learning to smoke. The natives of the 
West Indies taught the Spaniards, the Spaniards taught 
their nei^rhbors. Raleigh's colonists took lessons in the 



32 THE CO>[IXG OF THE ENGLISH. 

Strange fumigation from the Indians of Roanoke. Drake 
Tobacco picked it up, among other things, in his voy- 
smoiiii^. ages, and so the smoking of tobacco got to Eng- 
land and elsewhere in more than one \\-ay. It \\-as com- 
ing to be a fashion in the early years of the seventeenth 
century, and when the colonists in Virginia, about 1612, 
took a hint from Indian gardens, and found that the plant 
could be cultivated, their crop met an eager demand. 
The culture proved exceedingly profitable ; Virginia was 
made attractive by it to a better class of settlers than 
those obtained before, and the fortunes of the colony be- 
came secure. 

A change in the character and views of the London 

Company, even more important than this change in the 

circumstances of the colony, N\-as going on. In 

Reformers ^ . ^ c i ' r 

intieLc^a- 1019 the coutrol ot the company was won for 
piET.' a time bv a party of men who were leaders in 

the begninmg ot a great struggle ot the hnglish 
people with their kings for constitutional rights, and it 
had political results of importance, which will be described 
in another place (see section 23^. 

The settlements in Virginia were now multiplying fast, 
spreading up and down the peninsula between the James 
and York rivers, and in 1622 it ^^•as estimated that the 
whole population numbered 4000 souls. For years thev 
had had little trouble with the Indians, and they were 
ceasing to feel any fear. The salvages saw their care- 
lessness and were encoura£:ed to strike a sud- 

ladi&n out- "" 

ta«*k, den murderous blow, which thev did on the 

22d of March. 1622. Of the scattered colonists, 
347 men, women, and children were skiin that day ; then 
forces were rallied which checked the massacre, and retal- 
iated with a fierceness that awed the red men for a score 
of vears. 



BEGINNINGS OF THE EARLY COLONIES. 33 

The shock and the hurt to the colony from this disas- 
ter were not easily repaired. Many plantations were 
abandoned, many settlers returned to ICngland, and the 
enemies of the company, foremost among them the king, 
were given a fresh ground of attack. Proceedings to 
rescind its charter were begun the next year, overthrow 
and by a decision of the Court of King's Bench, London 
on the 1 6th of June, 1624, the charter was de- Company, 
dared to be -''null and void." Thereupon the London 
Company ceased to exist, and Virginia became subject 
to the direct authority of the king. 

6. The Founding of Maryland. 1632-1638. In 1633 
an extraordinary patent was issued by Charles I. (who suc- 
ceeded his father, James I., in 1625), conferring on Cecil- 
ius Calvert, Baron of Baltimore, the "prerogatives," the 
"royal rights and franchises," of sovereignty over a large 
part of what the Virginians considered their domain. It 
covered the region between the Potomac and the Dela- 
ware Bay and River, up to the 40th parallel of north 
latitude, creating a principality of the kind known as 
"palatine" (see sect. 28). This palatinate was 
to be called Maryland, in honor of the queen of more's 
Charles I. It had been promised to George 
Calvert, first Lord Baltimore, the father of Cecilius, but 
he died before the patent was signed, and it went to 
his son. Father and son had recently entered the Cath- 
olic church, and their object was to establish a place of 
refuge in America for people of that communipn, who 
were cruelly treated by English laws. The elder Calvert 
had attempted this first, under a similar grant, in New- 
foundland, but thought the climate too severe. 

The settlement of Maryland was begun in the spring 
of 1634, by a company of P2nglish immigrants, both 
Catholic and Protestant, led by Leonard Calvert, brother 



34 



THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH. 




FIRST SETTLEMENT IN MARYLAND. 



of Ceciliiis, who selected their home at St, Mary's, on 
the river of that name. St. Mary's was then an Indian vil- 
lage, with corn-fields 
in fair cultivation, all 
of which were bought 
from the resident 
tribe, and the grow- 
ing of corn received 
attention at once. 
Other immigrants fol- 
lowed, other settle- 
ments were founded, 
and the colony grew 
apace. Catholics and 
Protestants living peacefully together, equally free in 
their worship of God. The same religious freedom 
was established in those same years by Roger 

Religious -,,7.11. -nt -r» 1 • • i 

andpoiiti- \\ iluams, on Narragansett Bay, but it existed 

cal liberty. . , t» t • 1 ti ^ 

nowhere else, rolitical liberty, also, was in- 
tended by Lord Baltimore, who planned for it with a 
generous mind. All the freemen of the colony were 
called together as early as 1635, to sit in assembly with 
the governor (Leonard Calvert) and his council and take 
part in the preparation of a body of laws. In 1638 the 
colonists began to elect delegates to the Assembly, instead 
of meeting t^i masse, and representative government in 
IVIaryland was fairly on foot. 

The early years of the Maryland colony were full of 
conflicts with the Virginians, who disputed its right to the 
territory it held, but we cannot go into the long story 
of those disputes. 



BEGINNINGS OP^ THE EARLY COLONIES. 35 

Beginnings of New England. 1620-1642. 

7. First Settlement in New England. — The Pilgrim 
Fathers. 1620. For several years after the abandon- 
ment of the Popham settlement on the Kennebec, little 

attention was g^iven in England to the northern 

^ . ^ Captain 

part of the vast territory covered by King ^°Yh' 
James's srrant. The first to revive interest in survey and 

•' ^ " Descrip- 

North Viro^inia, as that region was then called, tion." 

^ ' °. . ' 1614-1616. 

was the adventurous Captain John Smith, who 
obtained help from Enghsh merchants, in 16 14, to equip 
an expedition to its coast for exploration and trade. One 
result of the captain's careful survey was a very good 
map of the coast (see Map III.), which he presented to 
Prince Charles (afterward King Charles I.), with the sug- 
gestion that the country represented be named New 
England. Two years later he wrote and pubhshed " A 
Description of New England," in which the settlement 
of the region was strongly urged. 

By this time the value of the fisheries, the fur trade, 
and the timber of New England had been learned ; but, 
harsh in climate as the country was, and generally poor 
[in soil, such attractions as it had were of a kind that 
would naturally, in that day, have drawn none but settlers 
of an adventurous class, like those of New France. If 
New England was to be populated by domestic folk, 
wanting homes and farms, some other inducement would 
be needed to bring them across the sea. Such another 
inducement did come into play, with powerful and memo- 
rable effects. It arose from the sore want in P^ngland 
of freedom for all religious beliefs that differed from the 
doctrines and forms of the established church. There 
was less of such freedom, in some respects, under the 
Stuart kings, than in Queen Elizabeth's reign ; and the 



36 THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH. 

Protestant body which suffered most from the persecuting 
laws of the time was that of the Separatists, or Inde- 
pendents, who claimed the ri^rht of each church 

The 

scrooby cons^recration to govern itself (see page 14). 

congxega- ^ n • 4. r 

uon. 1608- To escape the persecution, a small society of 
the Separatists, formed at Scrooby, in Notting- 
hamshire, left England in 1608 and took refuge in Hol- 
land ; but their thoughts became turned toward America, 
and they arranged with the London Company for a grant 
of land on the Delaware River, and for assistance in set- 
Thevoy- tling there. The pathetic story of the memo- 
age^oftho rable voyage of these "Pilgrim Fathers" (and 
sept^Dec. ^lothcrs) of New England, in the leaky ship 
1620. Speedwell, from Delft to Southampton, and in 

the Mayflower from Southampton and Plymouth to a 
landing which they did not intend, in Cape Cod Bay in- 
stead of the Delaware River, is so familiar that it need 
not be repeated here. 

8. The Plymouth Colony. 1620-1630. The first 
landing of explorers from the Maytiower, in the harbor 
which John Smith had named Plymouth, is believed to 
have been made on Monday, the 21st of December, 1620 
(according to the reckoning of the New Style), though 
the 2 2d has been the anniversary long observed. It 
was the middle of January before the company in general 
left the ship. Comfortable house shelter was impossible ; 
many had sickened in the overcrowded and long-buffeted 
ship ; the cold was severe ; food was neither plentiful nor 
The first good. The sufferings of that winter are be- 
winter. yond imagination, even though we know that 
44 out of 102 died before the end of March. Happily 
the weak settlement suffered no attacks from neighbor- 
ing Indians, who are supposed to have been affrighted 
by a fearful pestilence which visited them three years 



BEGINNINGS OF THE EARLY COLONIES. 3/ 

before, just after they had killed two or three white fish- 
ermen on the coast. Not an Indian came near the set- 
tlement for some months ; then ane Samoset, who had 
picked up a little English from fishing ships, appeared, 
and intercourse with the Wampanoag tribe was opened 
through him. Kind treatment won the confidence of 
the red men, and their sachem, Massasoit, entered into 
an agreement of friendship which was kept unbroken for 
more than fifty years. 

In the course of the next year the colonists received 
sanction from England for their occupancy of the ground 
on which circumstances had planted them against 
their will. The so-called Plymouth Company 
had then been reorganized and renamed as NewEng- 
"The Council for New England," and had re- 
ceived a new patent, giving it jurisdiction over territory 
that spanned the continent, from the ^tlantic to the 
Pacific, between the 40th and 48th degrees. Its grant 
for the Pilgrim settlement was made to a merchant com- 
pany, in trust for the colonists, who paid rent for their 
lands during several years, but were able at length to buy 
the ground on which they lived. By heavy toil, with great 
hardships and privations, they gradually made themselves 
fairly comfortable in their new home, and were 
joined by a few later comers from Leyden and growth oi 
England ; but their growth in numbers was so 
slow that they counted no more than three hundred at 
the end of ten years. 

In those ten years many English people engaged in 
fishing on the coasts of New P2ngland, and several at- 
tempts at settlement were made, with little or no result. 
Numerous grants were obtained from the Council for 
New England, by companies and individuals, and these 
were so carelessly or ignorantly defined that they often 



3S THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH. 

overlapped and conflicted with one another, causing 
troublesome disputes in after years. 

9. The Puritans in England. 1625-1630. Mean- 
time affairs in England were taking a course which led, 
at the close of the period in question, to a sudden move- 
ment of Puritan emigration, so extensive that strong col- 
onies in New. England were formed. King Charles I., 
more despotic in disposition than even his father had 
been, seemed likely at that time to succeed in breaking 
down the resistance of his subjects and making his own 
will supreme. He drove Parliament from its meeting- 
place in 1629, and for eleven years after that date the 
representation of the people in their government was 
suppressed. They were unlawfully taxed ; the patriots 
who opposed the king were imprisoned unlaw^fully ; the 
oppression became in every way intolerable ; but in no- 
thing else so much as in the king's attempt to force 
everybody to worship God in the mode which his own 
opinion approved. The views called Puritan, which have 
been described already (see page 14), had spread very 
widely by this time, and seem to have been held by a 
majority of the clergy and a large part of the laity of the 
established church. But a minority, supported by the 
king and the courts, were able to enforce church ceremo- 
nies which the Puritan majority abhorred. Most of those 
who stood up against the oppressions of the king, and 
strove for the constitutional rights of the people, were of 
the Puritan class, and were moved even more by religious 
than by political feeling. 

10. Emigration and Settlement of the Governor 
and Company of Massachusetts Bay. 1629-1637. 
By 1628 many Puritans were regarding their prospects 
in England with despair, and were looking toward 
America, as the Independents had done ten years before. 



BEGINNINGS OF THE EARLY COLONIES. 39 



A grant from the Council for New England was obtained 
by John Endicott and five others, giving them settlement 
the territory from three miles north of the °*saiem. 
Merrimac River to three miles south of the Charles, with 
the usual stretch from sea to sea. Endicott went out 
that same summer, with sixty 
others, to take possession of 
the grant, and joined a little 
settlement already made, called 
Naumkeag, which then took 
the name of Salem and has 
borne it since. In 1629 this 
scheme of colonization was 
broadened out. Endicott's 
joint stock company of six 
grantees became a large cor- 
poration, embracing many men 
of importance and wealth. 
Under the name of ''The Gov- 
ernor and Company of Massa- 
chusetts Bay," it obtained a royal charter, drawn in such 
terms that, by shrewd and bold management, a degree 
of independence which the king had not dreamed of was 
secured. The company could add to its membership 
without limit, and its ruling body, consisting of a gov- 
ernor, a deputy-governor, and twelve assistants, received 
authority to make such laws as it might deem needful, 
provided only that they " be not contrary or repugnant " 
to the laws of England. No place in which its Removal of 
powers should be exercised was named, and a |J?erimfent 
right to transfer the charter and government *° America, 
from England to New England was assumed. When, 
therefore, a large party of eight hundred Puritan colo- 
nists sailed from Yarmouth in the spring of 1630, their 




riymp^ 



THE FIRST NEW ENGLAND SET- 
TLEMENTS. 



40 THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH. 

charter, their governor (John Winthrop), and other officers, 
went with them to the shores of Massachusetts Bay. 

This party took residence first on the northern side of 
Charles River, naming the place Charlestown, but soon 
Settlement scattered, the greater number settling on the 
oi Boston, peninsula called Shawmut, where Boston was 
founded and became the chief town. Others from Eng- 
land followed the pioneers of the Puritan migration, in 
such numbers that nearly 4000 are believed to have been 
settled, in a score of villages around Massachusetts Bay, 
by the year 1634. 

It was impossible for the colony to have so rapid and 
so prosperous a growth, and to show the political freedom 
that it did from the beginning, without provoking hostil- 
ity in England, and its enemies were not slow to act. 
Controlling the Council for New England, they gave up 
the charter of that corporation, on condition that 

Hostility in „ , , i i 1 1 1 i 1 i • 

England. all its grants should be revoked by the king, 
and that New England should be parceled out 
afresh. Laud, the bigoted archbishop of Canterbury, 
was put at the head of a commission to superintend colo- 
nial affairs. The Massachusetts company was commanded 
to surrender its charter, and proceedings against it were 
begun in the English courts. But, fortunately, the con- 
flict in England between king and parliament came then 
to a stage which emboldened Massachusetts to disobey 
the command. Thereafter, Laud and the king and all 
their party had enough to think of at home, and their 
designs against New England came to naught. 

11. Enlightenment and Intolerance in the Mas- 
sachusetts Colony. 1635-1647. These threatenings 
from England made no stay in the prosperous progress 
of the colony. Two very different tendencies in the 
character of its people, toward breadth of mind in one 



BEGINNINGS OF THE EARLY COLONIES. 41 

direction and narrowness in another, were being shown 
at this time. We have evidence of the first in the Pub- 
lic Latin School of Boston, opened in 1635, ^-^^d 
in Harvard College, founded in the following College and 
year. Other public schools rose rapidly in the schools, 

"^ . 1635-1647. 

surrounding towns, and in 1647 the legislature 
of the colony, styled the "general court," enacted an 
ordinance which has been called with truth " the great 
charter of free education" in Massachusetts. ''That 
learning may not be buried in the grave of our fathers, 
in church and commonwealth," it said, " the Lord assist- 
ing our endeavors, it is therefore ordered that every 
township in this jurisdiction, after the Lord ordinance 
hath increased them to the number of fifty o*!®*^. 
householders, shall* then forthwith appoint one within 
their town to teach all such children as shall resort to 
him to write and read." 

At the same time, while sowing the seeds of free 
thought, by planting free schools, the Massachusetts 
Puritans were striving, in a narrow way, to make their 
own religious opinions the absolute law of their 
little state. Their first step in that direction ofthefran- 
was taken when all save members of their 
churches were excluded from the " freedom " of the 
" body politic," — that is, from a voice and vote in pub- 
lic affairs (see sect. 25). 

12. Secession from Massachusetts Bay. — The 
Founding of Connecticut. 1635-1638. Opposition to 
this exclusion was one, apparently, among several causes 
of discontent which brought about a movement of seces- 
sion and emigration to the valley of the Connecticut. 
The movement was begun by a few pioneers in 1635, 
and they were followed by a large party, led by Thomas 
Hooker, minister of the church at Newtown (afterward 



42 



THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH. 



Cambridge), in the next year. There were several claim- 
ants of that beautiful valley at the time. The Dutch 
First settle- ^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^ seize it ; men from Plymouth had 
ments. ^^jji^- ^ trading fort on the river ; Lord Brooke 
and Lord Say and Sele, in England, held a grant which 

covered it, and the agent of 
those noblemen, John Win- 
throp the younger, son of the 
Massachusetts governor, had 
built a fort that he called Say- 
brook, at the miouth of the 
river. At a later day the set- 
tlers from Massachusetts made 
terms with the holders of this 
grant. Their first settlements 
were at Windsor, Hartford, 
and Wethersfield, where about 
800 people were living in the 
spring of 1637, under a govern- 
ment organized more demo- 
cratically than that from which 
they had removed (see sect. 26). 

In that year the Connecticut colony was already so 
strong that it bore the brunt of the first serious war in 
New England between the red men and the white. Some 
murders of white traders by Pequot Indians had been 
ThePequot avenged by Massachusetts with a savageness 
War, 1637. ^j^^j. enraged the tribe. Its retaliations fell 
mostly on the settlers in Connecticut, and, though the 
latter could put less 'than 100 fighting men into the 
field, against 1000 braves, they fell upon the tribe and 
practically destroyed it in a brief campaign. With the 
help of a small company from Massachusetts and a few 




BEGINNINGS OF CONNECTICUT. 



BEGINNINGS OF THE EARLY COLONIES. 43 

friendly Indians, they surprised the Pequots in their 
stronghold, hunted them down without mercy, and left 
but a wretched remnant, some of whom were captured 
and enslaved. 

In the next year after the Pequot War (1638) another 
settlement within the later bounds of Connecticut was 
started, at New Haven, by a wealthy company 

gi 



from England, London merchants and others, New^Ha 



of the Puritan class, accompanied by their 
minister, John Davenport. This grew very soon into a 
colony of several confederated towns, with a government 
formed on a " Fundamental Agreement," as it was styled 
(see sect. 26). 

13. The Founding of Providence. — Beginnings of 
Rhode Island. 1636-1637. The exclusive Puritanism 
in Massachusetts which sent Thomas Hooker and his 
followers away from Charles River to a new settlement 
on the Connecticut was driving forth, in that jame year 
(1636), another pastor, of even larger mind and loftier 
spirit, to make him the founder of still another colony, 
that would be in due time another American State. 
This was Roger Williams, who came to Boston opinions of 
as a young divine in 163 1. He began soon to wmiams, 
give expression to opinions that offended the i®3i-i637. 
Puritans in power. He contended for the perfect free- 
dom of religious opinion (" soul-liberty," as he called it) 
which is common now in most parts of the world, but 
which few people in his day could think of as a possible 
thing. He held that civil governments should have 
nothing to do with the doctrines, ceremonies, or main- 
tenance of any church. He denied the right of the 
king of England to give away lands in America, and con- 
demned the taking of such lands without purchase from 



44 



THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH. 



the Indians as a flagrant vvrong.^ He was beyond his 
age in many such views. The authorities in Boston 
looked upon him as a troublesome agitator, and, when 
he was called to a church in Salem that approved his 
preaching, their hostility pursued him, until he withdrew 
to Plymouth, where he remained for nearly two years. 
Returning to his pulpit in Salem, he gave offence again 
to the rulers of Massachusetts Bay. In January, 1636, 
they ordered that he should be sent to England 
of Roger °^ on a ship then preparing to sail ; but he escaped 
MassaSiu- from them by going into the wild forest, among 
the Indians, whose language he had learned and 
whose friendship he had won. He made his way to the 

head of Narragansett Bay, where, 
being joined by faithful friends 
from Salem, he founded a settle- 
ment called Providence (see sect. 
27), on ground fairly bought from 
the Indians, with v/hom a " cove- 
nant of peaceful neighborhood " 
was entered into and enduringly 
kept. 

14. Mrs. Anne Hutchinson 
and the Antinomian Contro- 
versy. 1636-1638. In 1638 an- 
other settlement in the neighbor- 
hood of Providence was founded 
by another band of exiles from 
Massachusetts Bay. They were followers of Mrs. Anne 




.ISLANI 
.iuuioSlcTc) 



FIRST SETTLEMENTS ON 
NARRAGANSETT BAY. 



^ The ground first occupied by the settlers on Massachusetts 
Bay had not been bought from the natives ; but lands acquired 
subsequently for the extension of the settlement are said to have 
been bargained and paid for. Palfrey, History of New Ettgland, 
iii. 137- 



BEGINNINGS OF THE EARLY COLONIES. 45 

Hutchinson, a remarkable woman, who had been lec- 
turing in Boston and causing great religious excitement 
by doctrines which a majority of the ministers and rulers 
condemned. A strong party had been won to her sup- 
port, including the governor of that year,^ Sir sir Henry 
Henry or Sir Harry Vane, who had lately come ^^®- 
from England, and who returned there the next year, to 
become an important actor in the momentous events of 
the time. The doctrines in dispute, called " Antinomian," 
we will not try to explain ; it is enough to note the con- 
sequences of the dispute. The opponents of Mrs. Hutch- 
inson carried the day, and she and some of her adherents 
were banished from the jurisdiction of Massachusetts 
Bay. Some went with her and her husband to the island 
of Aquidneck, in Narragansett Bay, which they bought 
from the Indians, and which got the name of uariy Rhode 
Rhode Island, though they intended that it {fements?" 
should be called the Isle of Rhodes. Two set- •'•^^®- 
tlements were formed, at Portsmouth and Newport, and 
a few years later (1644-47) these, together with another 
settlement at Warwick, on Narragansett Bay, were united 
with that of Roger Williams in the " Colony of Provi- 
dence Plantations," under a patent which Williams went 
to England to obtain. 

Other companies of the friends and followers of Mrs. 
Hutchinson went northward and settled in towns which 
became the Exeter and Dover of New Hampshire. 

15. New England in 1640. In 1642 the strife in 
England between king and Parliament came to an out- 

^ John Winthrop had been reelected governor each year until 
1634, when Thomas Dudley was chosen. In 1635 John Haynes 
was elected; in 1636 the office was given to Vane. The next year 
Winthrop was returned to it and held it until 1649, except during 
two years — 1641 and 1645. 



46 THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH. 

break of civil war. The great Puritan party had grown 
strong enough to feel sure of success in breaking the 
Decrease in tyranny of royal power, and the chief motives of 
emigration, emigration to New England had nearly died 
out. After 1639 ^^^ many of that party crossed the sea. 
In 1640 the New England population is believed to have 
numbered about 26,000, and it had taken root already in 
five of the six States formed at a later day. Even Maine, 
which had been granted to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, as 
well as New Hampshire, claimed by Captain John Mason, 
contained a few germs of settlement within its bounds. 
More than half of the whole population was in Massa- 
chusetts, where a score of towns were growing up, all in 
the eastern section save Springfield, on the Connecticut 
River. Plymouth had planted a few other towns in its 
neighborhood, but the total of inhabitants did not exceed 
3000. Connecticut contained about the same number ; 
the New Haven settlements somewhat less. 

16. Confederation of four New England Colonies. 
1643. In 1643 these four substantial colonies formed 
a league, or loose confederacy, called " The United Colo- 
nies of New England." The main purpose of the union 
was a common defence, not only against Indian enemies, 
but also against the Dutch settlements growing up on 
the Hudson and the French on the north, both of which 
were giving rise to some fear. The Narragansett settle- 
ments were refused admission to the league. The fact 
that this confederacy was formed without authority from 
England marks the independent, self-reliant feeling that 
the New England colonies had already acquired. 

Dutch Settlements. 161 0-1655. 

17. The Dutch on the Hudson and the Delaware. 
1609-1655. The English were now securely settled in 



BEGINNINGS OF THE EARLY COLONIES. 4/ 



two widely separated parts of the American 
territory that they claimed, but they had 
lost control of the space between. The 
Dutch had slipped in and taken possession 
of the most valuable harbor on the coast, 
and of the two important streams then 
known as the North and South rivers, but 
afterwards named the Hudson and the Dela- 
ware. Their hold on those possessions was 
firm, and their title was as good as that 
acquired by any other European people. 
Though Cabot and other navigators of the 
sixteenth century may have looked 
the noble bay of New York, it was 
mariner in the service of the Dutch 
East India Company, Henry 
Hudson, who first explored 
the fine river which empties 
there and discovered the 
importance of the place. 
He did this in 1609, while 
searching for the ima- 
gined "northwestern pas- 
sage " to a sea beyond. 
His discovery was fol- 
lowed quickly by action 
at Amsterdam to occupy 
the ground. A station 
or factory for traffic with 
the Indians was estab- 





EARLY DUTCH SETTLEMENTS. 



lished on the island of 

Manhattan in 1610; the neighboring coast, eastward to 
Cape Cod and southward to Delaware Bay, was promptly 
explored and mapped ; the whole region was named New 



48 THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH. 

Netherland, and the company which mapped and named 
it received an exclusive privilege of trade from the govern- 
ment of Holland in 1614. In the same year a trading 
post called Fort Nassau was established up the 
founded. North River ; but this was abandoned five 

1619 

years later and another, called Fort Orange, 
was built where the city of Albany now stands. Friendly 
relations with the Five Nations of the Iroquois were culti- 
vated from the first, and with lasting effect. 

In 162 1 the original trading company was superseded 
by a great corporation, styled the West India Company, 
West India chartered with "almost unlimited powers to 
Company, colonizc, govern, and defend New Netherland." ^ 
The new company built a fort called Fort Amsterdam 
on Manhattan Island, in 1623, and sent out 30 families 
of its servants, who were engaged in the conduct of its 
trade. In that year it built, also, a fort on the Dela^^'are 
(or South River), opposite the site of Philadelphia, and 
began the construction of another on the Connecticut, 
where Hartford stands. Thus the energetic Hollanders 
made preparations to hold the two extremities of the 
territor)' that thev claimed. On the New England side 
they were opposed by the Connecticut colonists, who 
Swedes on proved too Strong for them and forced them 
wlre.^^^' t)ack : but they established their footing on 
1638-1655. ^j^g Delaware (1655) after a struggle with the 
Swedes, who founded a settlement there, at and around 
Wilmington, in 163S. 

18, 111 Government of the Dutch Colony. In 1626 
the company bought the island of Manhattan from the 
Indians, and its settlement, named New Amsterdam, 
soon became a thri\'ing seat of the fur trade — the most 
important outside of New France. Good government 

^ Brodhead, History of the State of Xe-c York, v. i. ch. 3. 



BEGINNINGS OF THE EARLY COLONIES. 49 

might have given the colony a brilliant career ; for, look- 
ing both seaward and landward, the advantages of its 
position were very great. But the government of New 
Netherland was not of the kind that would build up a 
vigorous colonial state. For some reason the Dutch failed 
to carry the free spirit of their home government with 
them into the colonies they founded in other parts of the 
world. Even the inhabitants of the growing town of 
New /\msterdam had no voice in the management of their 
own municipal affairs for more than forty years after its 
settlement was begun. The governors sent out by the 
W^st India Company were autocrats, under almost no 
restraint. Two of them, Wouter (Walter) \^an vanTwii- 
Twiller and William Kieft, who ruled the colony ^[eft?*^ 
in an important period, from 1632 till 1647, were i632-i647. 
men of little character or sense. The latter abused the 
neighboring Indians, of Algonquian tribes, with brutal 
recklessness, and provoked a terrible war (1641-44). 
After the colony had endured his senseless tyranny for 
ten years, it got a hearing for its complaints and he was 
removed, j^ivins: place to a fiery old soldier, Peter 

Peter Stuy- 

Stuyvesant, who was more of a despot than his vesant, 
predecessors, but dignified his autocracy by 
high qualities of a strong character which commanded 
respect. The reign of Stuyvesant lasted until the colony 
was taken from the Dutch. 

The Colonies during the Overthrow of Monarchy in 
England, i 642-1 660. 

19. Civil War in England. — Its Effect on the Col- 
onies. 1642-1649. In 1642 the conflict between the 
king and his party, called Cavaliers, and the Puritan 
party of the Parliament and people, called Roundheads, 
came to an outbreak of civil war. This produced a con- 



50 THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH. 

fusion and weakening of government which left the colo- 
nies in practical independence for some years. Until that 
time the crown had exercised sole sovereignty over all 
colonial possessions, without any parliamentary legisla- 
tion, and its right to do so had never been denied. Now, 
the royal authority was about to be extinguished for a 
period, by the result of the war, and meantime the colo- 
nies were reached by no authority that could really be 
enforced. In 1643 Parliament created a Board of Com- 
missioners to superintend colonial affairs, and thus as- 
serted its right to legislate for all the dominions of the 
English crown ; but the Board had little power. 

In 1649 the king, defeated in the war, was tried by the 
victorious party of his long-abused subjects, was con- 
demned, and was put to death. A republican 
wealth and government was then established, for what took 
rate, the name of the Commonwealth of Ene^land; 

1649-1658. , , . . , , .1 r 

but this existed no longer than four years. 
Then Oliver Cromwell, supported by the army, took the 
reins of government into his own hands, with the title of 
Lord Protector, and for the next five years he exercised 
an authority more dictatorial than the late king had ever 
claimed. 

20. Substantial Independence of New England. 
1642-1660. The New England colonists were natu- 
New Eng- ^^^^Y ^^ Sympathy with the party that triumphed 
the^civlf^^ in the English civil war ; but they were none 
"^"- the less disposed to gain all possible independ- 

ence for themselves from the state of political confusion 
into which the mother country had been brought. The 
late king's charter to the Massachusetts colonists was 
supposed to furnish the ground on which they were 
building up a political community in the New World. 
Theoretically they had been his subjects, not as being 



BEGINNINGS OF THE EARLY COLONIES. 51 

part of the English nation, under crown and Parliament, 
but as being a chartered community in another dominion 
of the king, across the sea. Practically, their subjection 
to the king had been made very slight by the troubles in 
England which weakened his power and drew his atten- 
tion away. Consequently, they had been able to act 
with almost the freedom of a sovereign people, from the 
first. Those who went away from them to the Connecti- 
cut valley had assumed even more of self-sovereignty, 
when they framed a constitution for themselves (see 
sect. 26) ; and the four leading colonies were 
fairly stepping into political independence when to the 
they formed a federal union (see sect. 16), with 
no consent asked for or given from the other side of the 
sea. This substantial independence they were deter- 
mined to keep unimpaired if they could. 

The attitude of New iMigland was shown with plain- 
ness in 165 1, when Parliament demanded a surrender of 
the royal charter of Massachusetts, and ordered Demands of 
the colony to take a new one from the parlia- Parliament, 
mentary commission created in 1643. No answer to the 
demand went from Boston for more than a year ; then it 
was given in the form of a courteous memorial, setting 
forth reasons why Massachusetts preferred to keep her 
old charter unchanged. 

But the written answer of Massachusetts to Parlia- 
ment did not, perhaps, express so much of her feeling of 
independence as was manifested in another proceeding 
of that same year (1652). This was the setting 
up of a mint for the coinine: of silver money, to chusetts 

1 • 1 r 1 . •. 1 A 11 mint, 1652. 

supply a pressing need of colonial trade. All 
the colonies had been suffering from the want of a stand- 
ard of value and a medium of exchange. They had 
been forced to use the ** wampum" or " peage " money 



52 THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH. 

of the Indians, made of shell beads, strung and woven 
jjariy into ornamental belts. They had likewise used 

money. beaver-skins and corn for a measure of value, 
and tobacco, in Virginia, was the only money known. In 
the palatinate of Maryland, the almost vice-royal pro- 
prietor had authority from his charter to coin money ; 
but that, being a special attribute of sovereignty, had 
not been conferred upon the Governor and Company of 
Massachusetts Bay. They boldly took it, however, on 
themselves, and the "pine tree shillings"^ which their 
mint began to issue might fairly be taken for an an- 
nouncement that Massachusetts esteemed herself to be a 
practically independent state. 

21. Persecution of Quakers in Massachusetts. 1656- 
1660. Massachusetts lost its able governor, John Win- 
throp, in 1649, and John Endicott was governor for all 
but two of the next fifteen years. Those were years 
in the history of the colony on which a barbarous perse- 
cution of the pure and peaceful Christian sect called 
Friends or Quakers has left a black stain. The Quakers 
were disciples of George Fox, then preaching in Eng- 
land. They were required by their belief to " testify," 

without regard to consequences, against many 
of the things in churches and governments, and to 

do it very often in rude and provoking ways. 
No punishment — death least of all — could keep them 
from the doing of this duty, as they conceived it to be. 
They were going forth from England at this time to 
preach their doctrines in many parts of the world, and 
they suffered persecution in many places, but nowhere 
else so unmercifully as in Massachusetts, which their 

^ So called from the figure of a pine tree, stamped on the face of 
the coin, with the name of the colony, in one of its old forms, 
" Masathusets," circled round it. 



BEGINNINGS OF THE EARLY COLONIES. 53 

first missionaries reached in 1656. That year they were 
only imprisoned and banished. The next year, under a 
special law, they suffered whipping, in addition, 
and sometimes the cutting of their ears. When in New 
those penalties failed to keep them out of Bos- 
ton, the magistrates and clergy persuaded the General 
Court to pass a law (1658) inflicting death. Under that 
dreadful law, in 1659 ^"^ 1660, three men and one wo- 
man were hanged. Then public feeling put a stop to 
the horrible work. The lesser punishments went on for 
some years, but no more of the dauntless Quakers were 
put to death. In the milder fashion they suffered perse- 
cution in all the New England colonies except Rhode 
Island, which was true to the tolerant principles of Roger 
Williams and refused to join in hunting them down. 

22. Virginia and Maryland during and after the 
English Civil War. 1642-1657. In Virginia, during 
and after the English civil war, the prevalent feeling 
was in sympathy with the cause of the king. For three 
years after the execution of King Charles, an unsubmis- 
sive royalist governor, Sir William Berkeley, held his 
ground at Jamestown, undisturbed. It was not until 
1652 that Parliament sent over a fleet, with commission- 
ers, who seated a new governor in Berkeley's place, leav- 
ing the colonial government otherwise untouched. In 
the next year the Lord Protector Cromwell grasped au- 
thority in England, and the Cavalier colony was discreetly 
submissive to his rule. 

Maryland was more disturbed than Virginia by the 
strife in England, becoming the scene of a fierce struggle 
for several years. In the beginning its proprietor. Lord 
Baltimore, espoused the king's cause. Later, he culti- 
vated the good-will of the opposite party, appointing a 
Protestant gentleman, William Stone, to be governor, 



54 THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH. 

and embodying a great enlargement of the policy of 
religious toleration in a famous act which he 
ationAct, drew up, and which was passed by the Mary- 
land Assembly in 1649. In 1652 the same 
parliamentary commissioners who displaced Governor 
Berkeley in Virginia entered Maryland and annulled the 
authority of its palatine lord. With the help of the 
Puritan new settlers in Maryland (see sect. 31), they de- 
posed Governor Stone, set up a provisional government, 
and filled a new Assembly with Puritans, by not allow- 
ing Catholics to vote or to hold seats. The body thus 
made up was so shameless as to alter the Toleration Act 
of 1649, by excepting '* popery, prelacy [that is, episco- 
pacy], and licentiousness of opinion " from the beliefs 
and practices that should be free. A state of fierce 
civil war in the colony ensued, in which the Puritans 
triumphed (1655) ; but Cromwell frowned on their pro- 
ceedings, and they were forced in the end (1657) to come 
to terms with Lord Baltimore. His government, and 
with it the Toleration Act of 1649, ^'^'^^ restored. 

In 1658 Cromwell died, and a state of things followed 
in England which made the people willing to restore 
their ancient monarchy, by calling the late king's elder 
son from exile and seating him on the throne (1660). 

TOPICS AND SUGGESTED READING AND RESEARCH. 

1. The French in Canada and Acadia. 

Topics and References. 

I. Beginnings of French settlement. 2. The territory called 
Acadia. Parkman, Pioneers, chs. ii.-v. ; Winsor, America, iv. 
135-145 ' Winsor, Cartier, ch. iv. ; Bourinot, ch. v. ; Roberts, iS-22. 

3. Champlain. — His Indian alliance and its lasting conse- 
quences. Parkman, Pionee?'s, chs. ii.-iv., ix.-xvii. ; Winsor, America^ 
iv. ch. iii. ; Winsor, Cartier, chs. v.-vii.; Higginson, 127-136; Bouri- 
not, chs. vi.-viii. ; Roberts, 22-45. 



i 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 55 

2. The French Fur Trade. — French Missions. 

Topics and References. 

I. Importance of the fur trade. 2. Character of the white popu- 
lation that it attracted. 3. French treatment of the Indians as 
affected by the fur trade. Parkman, Old Regime^ 303-315 ; Bouri- 
not, ch. xii.; Weeden, i. 129; Thwaites, 17-19, 48-49. 

4. French missions and missionaries in America. Parkman, 
Jesuits; Winsor, America^ iv. ch. vi. ; Winsor, Cartier^ 1 29-161 ; 
Bourinot, ch. ix. ; Higginson, 120-127. 






3. The Virginia Company in its Two Branches. 

Topics and References. 

I. Three early voyages to the New England coast. 2. Charter- 
ngof the Virginia Company (text in MacDonald, i. 11-17 ; Preston, 
1-13)- 3- Boundaries of the region called Virginia. 4. Division 
of the territory between two branches of the company. Fiske, 
Old Fa., i. 55-67; Doyle, i. 134-149; Fisher, 30-34; Thwaites, 
65-69. 

5. Change in grant to the branch called the London Company 
(text in MacDonald, i. 11-17; Preston, 14-21). 6. Doubtful de- 
scription of its new boundary. 7. Claims founded on it by Vir- 
ginians in later times. See references in sections 78 and 141. 
Research. — Which of the present States of the American Union 
were covered or partly covered by the first grant to the Virginia 
Company ? On what ground could the European nations which 
first " discovered " different parts of the American continent, 
already inhabited by red men, assume a right to take possession 
of them ? 

4. The James River Colony of the London Branch. 

Topics and References. 

1. Failure of the Popham settlement on the Kennebec. Palfrey, 
i. 83-85 ; Fiske, Old Va., i. 70, 71. 

2. The James River colony of the London Company. 3. Services 
and character of Captain John Smith. — Credibility of his story. 
John Smith, lVo7'ks, 305-488; Stith, 42-107; A. Brown, First 
Republic, ^reidiCQ ; Fiske, Old Fa., i. 71-79,80-143, 1 51-159; Doyle, 
i. 149-166; Higginson, 141-151; Hart, Conte}np''s, i. 209-218. 



56 BEGINNINGS OF THE EARLY COLONIES. 

4. Change in the London Company. — Its powers of govern- 
ment over the colony. Doyle, i. 167-177 ; Fiske, Old Fa., i. 144- 
147. 

Research. — The fate of Jamestown, the first settlement in Vir- 
ginia. 

6. Tobacco Culture. — Prosperity. — Disaster. 

Topics and Referexces. 

1. Prosperity on James River resulting from tobacco culture- 
Bruce, i. 51, 52, 160-165, 210-212, 254, 255, 262-270; Fiske, O/d 
Va., i. 174-177; Hart, Contetnp's, i. 288-291, 307-310; Eggleston, 
Bi'giftncrs, 84-86. 

2. Important political change in the London Company. See 
references in section 23. 

3. Spread of settlements between James and York rivers. 4. 
Murderous outbreak of Indians. 5. Overthrow of the charter of 
the London Company. Fiske, Old Va., i. 189, 190, 201-222 ; Hart, 
Cotiteinp's, i. iiz^-iyi^. 

Research. — Spanish influence at the English court against the 
London Company. Fiske, Old Va., i. 194-196. — With what 
kings did the English people carry on the struggle for constitu- 
tional rights that is referred to in this section ? 

6. The Founding of Maryland. 

Topics and References. 

1. Grant to Lord Baltimore of territory taken from Virginia 
(text in Preston, 63-77; MacDonald, i. 53-59). 

2. His "palatine " principality. See references in section 28. 

3. Object of Lord Baltimore in obtaining the grant. 4. Begin- 
ning of the settlement of Maryland. 5. Religious and political 
freedom in the Maryland colony. W. H. Browne, ch. ii. ; Fiske, 
Old Va., i. 265-275 ; Doyle, i. 367-387 ; Lodge, Short Hist., 93- 
100; Drake, Making Va., 66-79; Fisher, 62-67. 

Research. — The harsh treatment of Catholics in England at this 
period. Eggleston, Beginners, 236-239. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 5/ 

7. First Settlement in New England. — The Pilgrim 

Fathers. 

Topics and References. 

1. Mapping and naming of New England by Captain John Smith. 
Winsor, America, i'li. 179, 180; F\ske, Be^mmn^s, 77-7g; Palfrey, 
i. 92-98; Hart, Co7ite?np's^ i. 3 r 3-31 8; O. S. Leaf., 121. 

2. The influence which brought colonists to the region. 3. Mi- 
gration of the "Pilgrim Fathers." 4. Their religious denomina- 
tion and its claims. Palfrey, i. 126-163; Winsor, America, iii. 
chs. vii.-viii. . Walker, chs. i.-iii. ; Dexter, chs. i.-xvi. ; Fiske, Begin- 
niftgs, 70-77, 79-82; Eggleston, Beginners, 141-181; Doyle, ii. 14- 
68; Hart, Contenip''s, i. 167-170, 340-348. 

8. The Plymouth Colony. 

Topics and References. 

I. Sufferings and trials of the Pilgrim settlement. 2. Their 
relations with the Indians. 3. Creation of the Council for New 
England (text in MacDonald, i. 23-33). 

4. Its grant of land to the Pilgrim colony (text in MacDonald, 

i- 51-53). 

5. Slow growth of the colony. Palfrey, i. chs. v.-vi.; Dexter, chs. 

xvii.-xxv. ; Yisko:, Begijinings, 82-87 I Hart, Contemp's, i. 349-359. 

Research. — Other attempts at settlement in New England be- 
tween 1620 and 1630. Palfrey, i. ch. vi. ; Drake, Making N. ZT., 
104-141. In what circumstances was the Plymouth branch of 
the Virginia Company reorganized and rechartered, as the Coun- 
cil for New England ? Fisher, 84-85. 

9. The Puritans in England. 

Topics and References. 

I. Despotic attempts of Charles I. in England. 2. Spreading of 
the views called " Puritan." Green, ch. viii. sects. 1 and 5 ; Win- 
sor, America, iii. ch. vii. ; Walker, 76-94; Palfrey, i. ch. vii. ; Eg- 
gleston, Beginners^ 192-196; Earned, ^;/^/<2/2^, 379-384. 
Research. — What is an "established church " .? — Is there any 
such church in the United States ? — Is there now an established 
church in England ? — Did the distinction between Puritans and 
Independents, in their church organization, disappear after the 
former came to New England .? Walker, ch. iv. 



58 BEGINNINGS OF THE EARLY COLONIES. 

10. Emigration and Settlement of the Governor and 

Company of Massachusetts Bay. 

Topics and References. 

1. Cause of the emigration. Green, ch. viii. sect. 4. 

2. Grant of territory to John Endicott and others. — Endicott's 
settlement. 3. Chartering of " The Governor and Company of 
Massachusetts Bay." Remarkable degree of independence secured 
(text in MacDonald, i. 37-42 ; Preston, 36-61 ; O. S. Leaf., 7.) 
4. Transfer of the charter and government to New England. Ellis, 
ch. vii.; Fiske, Begimmtgs, 92-104, and Civil GovH, 146-148; 
Winsor, Boston, i. 151-159; Palfrey, i. 283-329; Doyle, ii. ch. iii. ; 
Hart, Contempts, i. 366-372; Fisher, 101-103, 108-112, 

5. Rapid rise of settlements on Massachusetts Bay. 6. De- 
mands for the surrender of the charter. Twitchell, chs. v.-x. ; 
Fisher, 120-123. 

Research. — Other grants by the Council for New England, to 
Mason, Gorges, and others. Doyle, ii. ch. vii. ; text in Mac- 
Donald, i. 36, 37, 50, 51. 

11. Enlightenment and Intolerance in the Massachu- 

setts Colony. 

Topics and References. 

1. The planting of schools and founding of Harvard College. 
Fiske, Begin/lings, iio-iii ; Palfrey, i. 548-549 ; Hart, Conte?)ip^s, 
i. 467-472. 

2. Restriction of political rights to church members. Walker, 
98-100, 125-128 ; Ellis, ch. vi. ; Fiske, Beginnings, 108-109, 247- 
252 ; Palfrey, i. 344-348, 383-389 \ Hart, Contemfs, 330-333, 393- 
396. 

12. Secession from Massachusetts Bay. — The Found- 

ing of Connecticut. 

Topics and References. 

I. Migration of Thomas Hooker and his followers to the Con- 
necticut. 2. Rival claimants of the Connecticut Valley. 3. The 
Pequot Indian War. 4. The New Haven settlement. — Its " Fun- 
damental Agreement" (text in MacDonald, i. 67-72). Johnston, 
Connecticut, 17-20,69-74; Fiske, Beginnings^ 122-127, 134-136; 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 59 

Doyle, ii. ch. v. , Eggleston, Beginners, 316-325; Hart, Conteinp's, 
i. 410-415, 439-444; Hubbard, ii. 5-38. See, also, references in 
sect. 26. 

13. The Founding of Providence. — Beginnings of 

Rhode Island. 

Topics and References. 

I. The broad views and tolerant spirit of Roger Williams. 
2. His persecution in Massachusetts. 3. The founding of Provi- 
dence Plantation. 4. The buying of lands from the Indians. 
Arnold, i. chs, i.-iv. ; Ellis, ch. viii. ; Walker, 129-136; Fiske, 
Beginjiijigs, 114-116; Hart, Contemp's^ i. 402-406; O. S. Lea/., 
54- 

Research. — The Character of Roger Williams. Eggleston, Begin- 
ners, 201-2,06. — Other early advocates of religious toleration. 
Brooks, 38-46, — Later development of religious freedom. 
Schaff ; Lauer, ch. iii. 

14. Mrs. Anne Hutchinson. — The Antinomian Con- 
troversy. 

Topics and References. 

I. Banishment of Mrs. Hutchinson and her followers. 2. Set- 
tlement,on the island of Aquidneck. — Other settlements on Nar- 
ragansett Bay. 3, Origin of the name of Rhode Island. 4. Patent 
to the " Colony of Providence Plantations " (text in MacDonald, 
i. 91-93). 5. New Hampshire settlements. Arnold, i. chs. ii., v.- 
vii. ; Hosmer, Vane, 47-80 ; Palfrey, i. ch. xii. ; Ellis, ch. ix. ; Kggle- 
ston, Beginners, ^2(^24.1 ; Fiske, Beginnings, 1 16-120; Twitchell, 
chs. xi.-xii. ; Hart, Conie/np's, i. 382-387, 397-401. 
Research. — The subsequent political career of Vane in England. 

Hosmer, Vane. 

15. New England in 1640. 

Topics and References. 

I. Outbreak of civil war in England. 2. Ending of Puritan 
emigration. 3. Extent and distribution of population in New Eng- 
land. Fiske, Begiitnings, 137-139. 



6o BEGINNINGS OF THE EARLY COLONIES. 

16. Confederation of Four New England Colonies. 

Topics and References. 

I. Confederation of the four leading New England colonies 
(text in Preston, 85-95 ; MacDonald, i. 94-101). 2. Purpose of 
the union, and its significance. Fiske, Begmiiiiigs^ 1 55-160; Palfrey, 
i. 623-634; Doyle, ii. 294-316; Frothingham, Rise of the Rep., 
33-49 j Hart, Cotitemp's, i. 447-454. 

17. The Dutch on the Hudson and the Delaware. 

Topics and References. 

I. Position acquired by the Dutch. 2. Their title to it. 3. Ex- 
tent of territory claimed by them and called New Netherland. 
4. Chartering of the West India Company, and its early settle- 
ments. Fiske, D. and Q. CoPs, i. 97-113, 116-117, 277-279. 
Research. — Swedish settlements on the Delaware. O. S. Leaf., 

96 ; Fiske, D. and Q. CoPs, i. 237-242. 

18. Ill Government of the Dutch Colonies. 

Topics and References. 

I. New Amsterdam. 2. Character of the New Netherland gov- 
ernment. 3. Peter Stuyvesant. O'Callaghan, ii. bk. 6, ch. viii. ; 
Fiske, D. and Q. CoVs, \. 131-133, 162-201 ; Lodge, Short Hist., 
286-292 ; Thwaites, Colonies, 198-202 ; Drake, Making P'a.y 123- 
138 ; Hart, Conte^np^s, i. 529-537. 
Research. — Constitution and character of the government of 

Holland at this time. 

19. Civil War in England. — Its Effect on the Colo- 
nies. 

Topics and References. 

I. The royahst party, called Cavaliers, and the parliamentary 
party, called Roundheads. 2. Confusion and weakening of author- 
ity over the colonies. 3. Execution of the king. 4. The Common- 
wealth and Protectorate in England. Green, ch. viii. sects. 7-10 ; 
Gardiner, 537-576 ; Earned, England, ch. xvii. 



TOPICS, REFERENXES, AND RESEARCH. 6l 

20. Substantial Independence of New England. 

Topics and References. 

I. Attitude of the New England colonies during and after the 
English civil war. 2. Theory of the relation of the colonies to the 
English crown. Fiske, Civil Gov'ts 156-158. 

3. Failure of the attempt of Parliament to charter Massachusetts 
anew. Yiskt, Begifi?u'ngs, 160-162; Palfrey, ii. 401, 

4. The Massachusetts mint and its significance. 5. Substitutes 
for coined money in the colonies. Weeden, i. 32-45, 190-192, 325- 
326 ; Palfrey, ii. 403-405. 

6. Cromwell's attitude toward the colonies. 
Research. — The origin of coined money. — The two purposes 
which money serves, and the reasons why they are served best 
by the so-called precious metals. — Why and under what condi- 
tions can a paper note be made to serve satisfactorily as a repre- 
sentative substitute for coined money 1 Jevons, chs. iii., v.-vi., 
x\'i.-xviii. 

21. Persecution of Quakers in Massachusetts. 

Topics and References. 

I. The Friends, or Quakers. 2. Their persecution in Massa- 
chusetts and elsewhere. Fiske, Begifinijigs, 1 79-191 ; Higginson, 
203-206; Doyle, iii. 126-146; Hart, Conieinp's^ i. 479-486. 
Research. — Characteristics of the Quakers (Hallowell, ch. i.). 

22. Virginia and Maryland during and after the Eng- 
lish Civil War. 

Topics and References. 

I. Virginia in sympathy with the king. 2. Treatment of the 
colony by Parliament and Cromwell. Doyle, i. 281-302; Fiske, 
Old Fa., ii. 16-21 : Lodge, Short Hist., 14-1S ; Hart, Cojitevip's, 
233-236. 

3. The Maryland Toleration Act of 1649 (text in MacDonald, 
i. 104-106 ; Hart. Contetnp's. i. 291-294). 4. Influx of expelled 
Puritans from Virginia. 5. Their conduct in Mar}-land. W.H. 
Browne, 57-89; Fiske, Old Va.. \. 301-31S: Doyle, i. 402-416; 
Hart, Conte?np's, i. 262-267. 



CHAPTER II. 

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE EARLY 

COLONIES. 

23. Virginia. In origin and in form and character of 
society and government there was much unlikeness be- 
tween the seven English colonies that existed when the 
Protectorate in England was overthrown and monarchy 
was restored. 

Virginia had been colonized first by a company, royally 
chartered, most of whose members remained in England, 
keeping the whole direction of the colony there and gov- 
erning it wholly through officials of its own. In 1619 the 
colony passed under the control of men who were wise 
and generous enough to give instructions that the Vir- 
ginia planters " might have a hand in the government of 
themselves ; " whereupon the colonial governor caused 
two representatives to be elected from each of eleven set- 
tlements or plantations, who were to meet with a council 
which the company appointed, forming a general assembly, 
— the first of American legislatures, and probably the first 
colonial legislature in the world since those of the ancient 
Greeks. Two years later the company, led by Sir Edwin 
sir Edwin Sandys, a man of great influence and ability, 
Sandys. established this system of partly representative 
government more formally and firmly by embodying it in 
an ordinance, adopted on the 24th of July, 1621} The 

^ This was more nearly a written constitution of government 
than the agreement to be spoken of presently, which the Pilgrim 



POLITICAL AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT. 63 

broad-minded men who brought this about were leaders 
in the party which resisted the tyrannical attempts of 
King James to destroy the political rights of the Eng- 
lish people. Hence the king was hostile to them, and he 
was able, with the help of a subservient bench of judges, 
to annul their charter and take the colony out of their 
hands. He then began to plan a new scheme of govern- 
ment for Virginia, and would, of course, have swept away 
its representative legislature ; but he fell sick soon after- 
ward and died (March, 1625). His son and successor, 
Charles I., plunged instantly into quarrels with his sub- 
jects at home, which kept him busy, and Virginia was 
let alone. Except that its governor and council were ap- 
pointed thenceforth by the crown, the government of the 
colony was unchanged, and its general assembly lived on 
through the whole of the colonial time. The 

1 • • 1 1 1 11 1 Assembly 

popular representatives in the assembly, called of Bur- 
burgesses, were elected by vote of all the free 
male "inhabitants" of the colony until 1670, when the 
suffrage was restricted to " freeholders and housekeep- 
ers." , 

Excepting Virginia, every one of the early colonies 
had its origin in a movement of escape from intolerant 
laws concerning religious practices and beliefs. Religious 
Two of them (Connecticut and Rhode Lsland) ^^^^^ins. 
represented secessions from the main body of the exiles ; 

Fathers of the Mayflower adopted eight months before. This Vir- 
ginia ordinance created the apparatus of a representative govern- 
ment, which the Mayflower Compact did not ; but the latter was 
the agreement of the people themselves, while the former was a 
grant from men who exercised sovereignty over the people in the 
king's name. Both instruments are of memorable interest in Ameri- 
can history ; but neither of them can be called " the first of written 
constitutions," as the " Fundamental Orders " of Connecticut (see 
sect. 26) can be, in the strict modern sense. 



64 THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH. 

in four instances the migration was self-directed by those 
who took part in it ; in the remaining case (that of 
Maryland) it was not. 

24. Plymouth. In the matter of government, the 
Mayflower Pilgrims, on arriving at Plymouth, were singu- 
larly placed. They came to America with no govern- 
ment provided for them by the authority in England 
which claimed sovereignty over their new home, and with 
no authorization to govern themselves. Self-government 
was forced on them, in a primitive way, by the necessi- 
ties of their situation, impelling them to exercise a natu- 
ral right. To agree on some organization of authority 
amongst themselves was all that they could do. They 
framed such an agreement and signed it, on the i ith of 
November (Old Style, being the 21st, New Style), be- 
Mayiiower ^^^^ landing from the ship.^ If we can call this 
Compact. u Mayflower Compact," as it is known, a con- 
stitution of democratic government, it was the simplest 
ever written, and the first (see footnote, sect. 23). It 
gave sufficient authority to the governor, chosen yearly 
thereafter (John Carver in the first year, and William 
Bradford in most of the thirty-six following years), and 
sufficient force to the simple ordinances that were en- 
acted in meetings of the whole small body of the Plym- 

1 "We," it said, "having undertaken, for the glory of God and 
advancement of the Christian faith and honor of our king and coun- 
try, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Vir- 
ginia, do, by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence 
of God, and of one another, covenant and combine ourselves to- 
gether into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preser- 
vation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and, by virtue hereof, 
to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, 
acts, constitutions and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought 
most meet for the general good of the colony. Unto which we 
promise all due submission and obedience." 



POLITICAL AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT. 65 

outh freemen, until 1639. After that time deputies were 
chosen to form a representative legislature, in place of 
the original meeting of all. From the beginning to the 
end of its separate existence, the Plymouth colony was 
a self-constituted republic, existing as such by sufferance 
of the government that claimed dominion over it. 

25. Massachusetts. Very different in political struc- 
ture was the colony next planted on the New England 
coast. That came, as we have seen (sect. 10), to an 
appointed territory, and came fully constituted and organ- 
ized in advance, — " the Governor and Company of Mas- 
sachusetts Bay/' — endowed with all the powers of self- 
government that the sovereignty assumed by the king 
of England could confer. It came as a corporate body, 
created by royal charter, empowered to add to its mem- 
bership without limit, and, apparently, on its own terms. 
It exercised that power of admitting new members by 
adopting a rule, in the year after its arrival in America, 
that *' no man shall be admitted to the freedom of this 
body politic but such as are members of some 

,, Restriction 

of the churches within the limits of the same, of the fran- 
chise to 

This shut out all but members of Puritan church 

members. 

churches, since no other religious bodies were 
allowed, for some time, to hold services in the colony. 
It did not exclude other persons from residence in the 
colony, for many who were not Puritan church members 
came in ; but it denied them political rights. They were 
not "freemen" of the body politic ; they had no vote. 
This peculiar qualification of the suffrage became a cause 
of deep discontent ; but, with a slight relaxation (in 1662, 
by what was called the "■ Halfway Covenant "), it was 
stoutly maintained for more than half a century, until 
the cherished charter of the "Governor and Company" 
had been annulled. 



(i6 THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH. 

At the outset, the general body of the " freemen " of 
the colony could exercise their political franchise only by 
being present at the meetings called the "general court." 
They elected the twelve ** assistants provided for in the 
charter ; " the assistants elected the governor ; the gov- 
ernor and assistants made and executed laws. But in the 
second year of the colony the yearly election of the gov- 
ernor was taken from the assistants and given 
Represen- to the general body of freemen ; and in the third 
year a representative legislature was created, 
formed of deputies from each town. Its sessions were 
still called meetings of the "general court." 

26. Connecticut and. New Haven. Disapproval of 
the narrow restriction of political rights in Massachusetts 
was among the causes that led to the secession and mi- 
gration which planted a separate colony in the Connecti- 
cut valley. The first three Connecticut settlements were 
made by emigrants from the three Massachusetts towns 
of Newtown (afterwards Cambridge), Watertown, and 
Dorchester, and each brought part of its town and church 
organization with it, setting the same in operation on the 
new ground at once. Their local government suffered 
no break, therefore, and a general or commonwealth gov- 
ernment was created immediately, by an assembly of the 
magistrates of the three towns, to form a " general court." 
In 1639 the whole body of *' the inhabitants and resi- 
Fundamen- ^^euts " of the three towns adopted what they 
if Gove?n- called the " Fundamental Orders " of govern- 
ment, ment for their commonwealth, in a series of de- 
crees which form, in the most complete sense of the term, 
a written political constitution ; and, in that full sense, it 
is the first that is known to have been framed as a scheme 
of self-government by any community of people in the 



POLITICAL AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT. 6/ 

world. ^ "We the inhabitants and residents of Windsor, 
Hartford, and Wethersfield," said they, in these " Orders," 
" well -knowing where a people are gathered together 
. . . there should be an orderly and decent government 
established according to God, to order and dispose of 
the affairs of the people at all seasons as occasion shall 
require, do therefore associate and conjoin ourselves to 
be as one public state or commonwealth." Here, then, 
we have again, as at Plymouth, the creation of a self-con- 
stituted commonwealth, derived from no exterior sover- 
eignty, and resting on none, until, after a quarter of a 
century, its constitution was uselessly confirmed by a 
charter from the king. 

The same self-making of government was performed 
at New Haven, in the founding of a colony there that 
was joined a little later to Connecticut. Authority at 
New Haven was based on a " P^undamental Agreement," 
in six resolutions ; but the community had nothing of the 
democratic spirit of its near neighbors, up the river, since 
none but church members were admitted to the fran- 
chises of the little state. 

27. Rhode Island. In like manner, Roger Williams 
and his followers accomplished their self-organization of 
government on Narragansett Bay, by a compact as sim- 
ple as that of the Plymouth Pilgrims. It united them, 

1 Dr. Fiske calls attention to the fact that "this document con- 
tains none of the conventional references to a 'dread sovereign ' or 
a 'gracious king,' nor the slightest allusion to the British or any 
other government outside of Connecticut itself, nor does it pre- 
scribe any condition of church membership for the right of suf- 
frage. It was the fir.st written constitution known to history that 
created a government, and it marked the beginnings of American 
democracy, of which Thomas Hooker deserves more than any other 
man to be called the father."' — Beginnings of iVew Eftgland, p. 127. 
See, also, footnote on page 63. 



6S THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH. 

"with such others as they shall admit." in a "town fel- 
lowship;" but stipulated that the fellowship should be 
" only in ci\*il things." thus declaring a separation of the 
affviirs of the "state " from the affairs of the "church." 
Their civil crovernment was the first in histor\- to be 
barred from interference with the freedom of the soul. 

28. Maryland. In the case of Maryland the political 
formation was wholly different from that of any of the 
colonies described above. The king of England, in that 
instance, transferred to one of his subjects. Lord Balti- 
more, ahnost the whole sovereignty that he claimed over 
a portion of American territory, parting with the exercise 
of that sovereignty so completely that his relation to 
Marvland became only that of a feudal suzerain or over- 
lord. This created what was known in the Middle Ages 
and afterward as a palatine praviitce or palatinate, for the 
Sovereignty ^'^'^^^'^^'i ^^^^^ ^^^^ powers conferred on its lord 
on^o?d'^ were those exercised in the palace of the king. 
Baltimore, y^^ could sTant titles of nobilitv. coin monev. 
create courts, appoint judges, hear appeals from them, 
approve or annul all colonial proceedings, and be prac- 
tically, in fact, a sovereign within his domain. But he 
was not to be an absolute sovereign, any more than the 
kins: of EnirLind was constitutionallv such. Bv the terms 
of his patent he was required to give the freemen of his 
province a voice in the making of their laws. At first 
they were all called together for that purpose, in an 
assembly like the " folk-moots " of the early EngUsh ; but 
in 1638 they beg-an to choose delegates to the assem- 
blv, to sit with the governor, and representative govern- 
ment existed in Maryland from that time. 

29. The Constitutional Differences and the Fun- 
damental Likeness. To review, now, the variety of 
political constructions in the first English-American col- 



POLITICAL AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT. 69 

onics : Virginia had l)ccn planted originally by a com- 
pany resident in luigland, to \Yhich the king had granted 
a large piece of territory, with a somewhat limited power 
to govern the settlements made in it ; but the grant to 
that company had been annulled by English courts, and 
the colony became then what is called a " crown colony," 
governed directly by the king. Massachusetts had been 
planted by a company which held a similar grant from 
the king, by a charter that was also a constitution of 
government ; but the company, instead of remaining in 
England to send out colonists and rule them, transferred 
itself to America, and was itself the colony which it had 
royal authority to found and rule. Maryland was a ''pro- 
prietary province," so called, — the property or princi- 
pality of a lord, who owned its soil and was the 
sovereign of its people. The remaining three in early 
colonies — Plymouth, Connecticut, and Rhode govem- 
Island — had been planted without authority, 
and self-government had been organized in them by 
their inhabitants. Rhode Island had already received a 
charter from the P^nglish government, and Connecticut 
was to be chartered later ; but all three were not only 
self-planted, like Massachusetts, but were self-constituted 
republican states. 

Under the wide differences in their political construc- 
tion there was a fundamental likeness between these col- 
onies, in the fact that the people in all of them had what 
the Virginia company described as *'a hand in the govern- 
ment of themselves." There was a representative legis- 
lature in every one ; having more independence in some 
than in others, but exercising everywhere a large measure 
of democratic power, and striving incessantly against all 
outside restraints. This was because they were Eng- 
lish colonies, of English creation, peopled mainly by Eng- 



70 THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH. 

lishmen, who brought from home the expectation of 
Resem- being Hstened to by their government, and of 
S^Sy being represented in the making of their laws 
govSn- ^^d the levying of the taxes they paid. There 
^fi^^s. ^y^g j^Q ^^^Yi thing in French or Spanish colonies, 
nor even in those planted by the Dutch. The nearest 
approach to it in the Dutch-American colony of New 
Netherland was a self-perpetuating board of "Nine 
Men," whom the arbitrary governor consulted when it 
pleased him to do so ; and even that unrepresentative 
board was not created until the colony had existed for 
nearly forty years. 

Popular representation in government had an ancient 
origin among the Germanic peoples ; but feudalism de- 
stroyed it almost everywhere on the European continent. 
In England it survived, through many vicissitudes, some- 
times in vigorous exercise, sometimes preserved feebly, 
more in form than in spirit, but never given up. At the 
time when the six colonies we now speak of were planted, 
the English people were engaged in a decisive struggle 
Popular re- "^^^^^ their kings, to recover for their represen- 
teSoii\ tatives in Parliament the full measure of their 
England. ancient constitutional powers, which had been 
slipping away. They had accomplished that, and more; 
and the spirit of their struggle, as well as the fruits of it, 
had reached their colonial plantations in the New World. 

30. Local governments. — Town, Parish, County, 
and Hundred. Quite as important as the general legis- 
latures in which the people were represented — in some 
views more important — were the local organizations in 
which they managed their neighborhood affairs. These, 
too, with the training to use them, were brought by the 
colonists from their mother-land. The early English 
people had been organized in democratic townships (lim- 



POLITICAL AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT. /I 

scipes), all the freemen of which assembled in meetings 
(called gemots or moots), at which the affairs of the tini 
or town were regulated, and from which four " best men " 
were chosen to represent the ttcu in moots of Tuns and 
larger districts, called Jnmdreds and shires, the Tun-moots. 
latter corresponding to the counties of later times. Feu- 
dalism and the Norman conquest brought about a great 
change in the old English townships, converting or ab- 
sorbing them into small lordships, called manors, in which, 
however, some semblance of the ancient tim-moot or town- 
meeting was still retained. Meantime the Christian 
church had been forming parishes that were bounded 
generally by the old township lines, and the priests called 
parish meetings, which gradually took up a parish 
good deal of the same kind of local business "^ee^^^es. 
that the town meetings had transacted, thus keeping 
alive amongst the people the practice of local self-gov- 
ernment, which might otherwise have been suppressed. 

This most important practice was brought by the Eng- 
lish to America, and introduced in the several colonies 
in somewhat different forms. The Puritan New Eng- 
landers put the old township system and the later parish 
system together, by grouping themselves in church so- 
cieties and congregations when their first settlements 
were made, each church becoming the nucleus of a town. 
This naturally organized the inhabitants of the towns, 
brought them into intimate and democratic relations 
with one another, and trained them in the habit of meet- 
ing to discuss and act on all matters of common concern. 
Church meetings became town meetings, and chuj-ch and 
the latter grew, probably, to more importance in {ngs^nNew 
New England than they possessed in the days of England, 
the old English tim-moot. The whole structure of govern- 
ment in New England was built up from the ground- 



^2 THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH. 

work of these democratic towns. Their representatives 
composed the ** general courts ; " they were the units of 
all political organization — the primaries of all action in 
public affairs. 

In Virginia and Maryland, with their separated planta- 
tion settlements, local government was organized neces- 
sarily in looser modes. Mrginia colonists brought with 
them the established English church, and with it the 
parish, in its English form. To some extent, in some 
places, the parish vestry meetings acquired political func- 
tions, but their influence in that direction was slight. 
The county was the smallest territorial division in which 
Vestry and ^^*^ people of Mrginia were able really to organ- 
meetings in ^^^ their political action, or to associate them- 
virginia. selves politically in informal ways. It became 
the unit of representation in the House of Burgesses at 
an early day ; the magistrates of the county courts, ap- 
pointed by the governor, had most of the functions of 
local government put into their hands ; the elections of 
burgesses were held in the county court-house, and 
it was there, on court days, that the planters came to- 
gether and listened to speeches on public matters, or dis- 
cussed them in private talk. A lively political spirit was 
cultivated by these gatherings, but it was much less 
democratic in character than that of the New England 
towns. In Maryland, where the English manorial system 
was instituted by Lord Baltimore, the most important 
organization of local government was in districts called 
by the old English name of the Junuired, There were 
settlements in Mrs^inia called Jiundreds, but 

Hundreds ^ , , ^ , -t-i 

in Mary- they had no essential purpose to serve. Ihe 
Maryland JuDidrcd was the district of elections, 
of militia trainings, and of nearly all popular meetings 
of every kind. 



POLITICAL AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT. 73 

31. Social Structure and Character of Virginia and 
Maryland. In social structure and character Virginia 
differed widely from the colonies at the north. Every 
element of English population was represented in the 
early emio^ration to James River, including a con- 

• 1,1 , r T. • 1 1 1 Early set- 

siderable number of ruritan settlers; but the tiers in vir- 

^ . • 1 r A • glnla. 

majority of those going to that part oi America 

were people who abhorred opposition to the throne and 
the established church. As the English Puritans were 
driven to range themselves more and more against king 
and church, Virginia grew hostile to them, and most of 
those who had come into the colony were finally (1648-49) 
driven away into Maryland, about a thousand in num- 
ber. Their places in Virginia were more than filled by 
an extensive immigration from England of the defeated 
royalists, which began in 1649. In that year the popu- 
lation of Virginia was about 15,000; it seems to have 
been doubled in the next eleven years, while England 
had no king, and the newcomers were generally from 
the royalist side. Many of them came from the Royaiist 
stock of the English gentry, and many more i^n^^Krants. 
from the class of land-owning farmers called "yeomen," 
generally bringing enough of means for the buying of 
estates in land, and for becoming tobacco-planters on a 
considerable scale. They gave a stamp of character to 
one side — an aristocratic side — of Virginia society, that 
was never lost. 

Agriculture, the most democratic of occupations in 
most times and places, was made aristocratic in Virginia 
by the tobacco plant, which gave better profits to a 
lordly system of cultivation on big plantations, by the 
cheap labor of purchased servants (see page 75) or con- 
victs or slaves, than to the tillage of the humbler farm. 
Virginia society was moulded, politically and economi- 



74 THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH. 

cally, by that fact. It tended toward the creation of large 
estates in land, and toward the rise of an all-controlling 
class of wealthy, strong-willed men, surrounded by help- 
less or humble dependents, and living a much separated 
country life. The abundance of large rivers in Virginia 
made it possible, in the early colonial time, to place every 
considerable plantation on a navigable stream. 

Influence of . , 

tobacco Each wealthy planter had his own wharves, 

culture. 

from which he shipped his tobacco crop, and to 
which the ships came that brought back most of the pro- 
ceeds in English goods. This mode of business left little 
for local merchants to do ; little chance, too, for manufac- 
turing to arise ; almost nothing that could build up towns. 
In Maryland the conditions were much the same. 

32. Social Structure and Character of New Eng- 
land. Very different were the circumstances in colonial 
New England, and very different the social tone. There 
the dominant part of the population had been picked 
from England by a sifting out of extremely earnest re- 
Reiigious ligious minds. They were people to whom the 
early °* matters of religion were the most important in 
colonists. |-£g^ ^^^ whose views of religion were grave and 
stern. Many of them were from English families of the 
gentry class, and quite commonly they were people of 
education and of comfortable means. The Puritan min- 
isters who came with them, and who exercised a com- 
manding influence, were mostly men of a remarkably 
high order in character and mind. If there existed any 
class that could be called aristocratic in New England, 
these strong, dictatorial divines were its chiefs ; but all 
the conditions of life, on the small country farms and in 
the many towns, were such as tend toward the demo- 
cratic plane. 

33. New Netherland. — The " Patroon " System. 



POLITICAL AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT. 75 

In the Dutch colony of New Netherland, under the 
Dutch West India Company, an unfortunate attempt 
had been made to establish a kind of feudal system, by 
offering lands, not directly to settlers, but to a class of 
landlords, called patrons or "patroons," each of whom, 
when he had bought from the Indian owners a tract of 
land, might settle it with colonists who became, not only 
his tenants, paying him rent, but his subjects, to a con- 
siderable extent. Locally he was their governor, their 
judge, their military captain, and he controlled their 
church. Under this Americanized feudal system sev- 
eral enormous tracts of land were secured. One of them, 
obtained by Killian van Rensselaer, extended along the 
Hudson for forty-eight miles, and was twenty-four miles 
in breadth. Naturally, the plan failed to bring many im- 
migrants into the colony, and it was abandoned in 1638 ; 
but not until it had done great mischief, leaving trouble- 
some monopolies in the ownership of land and lasting 
social marks. 

34. Slavery and Indentured Servitude in all the 
Colonies. Both negro slavery and another system of 
bondage, which white people were subjected to, crept into 
Virginia in 16 19, when that was the sole settlement of 
the English in America, and both of the evil systems 
made their way into the other colonies at a later time. 
Twenty negroes from Africa were brought to jj^g^Q 
Jamestown that year and sold ; and one hun- slavery, 
dred poor boys and girls were brought from London at 
about the same time to be *' bound " or indentured to the 
colonists for a term of years. This latter was the begin- 
ning of a system of " indentured servitude " which spread 
from Virginia through all the colonies, and which, for a 
long period, exceeded negro slavery in extent. Multitudes 
of men and women, as well as boys and girls, were sent into 



76 THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH. 

this kind of bondage from the Old World to the New. 
Tiiwtinfl ^I-'iriy- ^^"ho were called ** reviemptioners." bound 



***• themselves to it for a given period, as a 
means of obtaining free passage across the sea. Some 
were \*agrants, paupers, and criminals, of whom England 
wished to be rid ; still others were Irish and Scotch pris- 
oners, taken in the wars that occurred soon after the 
practice began. Finally, as the demand for labor in- 
creased, and high prices were paid for indentured ser- 
\'ants, even kidnapping was winked at, in order to secure 
them, and hundreds of \*oung people were Wllainously 
trapped in A-arious wa\-s to be brought to America and 
sold. 

TOPICS AND SUGGESTED READING AND RE:5EAKCH. 

23. Vii^inia. 

Topics and References. 

X. Go\-emment of Virvnni-i from 1607 to 1619. «. Estab lis hm ent 

of representatiNif govemmeni in 1619. 3. The ordinance of i6ci 

^text in MacDonald. i. 54-30 ; Preston, 32-35V A. Brown. £m^. 

Pi\"i/u's, 21-41; Fiske, cV*/ /"a., i. 177-1$$, 191-194: Doyle, i. 

20$-2i6: Hart. L><.v«r/V. i. 21S-225. 
4. Nullincatioa of the chaner by James I. 5. Go\-ertunent of 

the colony under Charles I. Brown, ^'wj:. P^'itus. 42--S6: Doyie» 

i. 219-245 ; Fiske, lVJ />., i. 104-222. 241-254. 

6. Virginia the one early English colony of non-religious origiiL 

Research. — How does the English constitution dioer from the 
** written constitutions '* now comm<xi in the worid .- See Amer- 
ican preface to Bagehot's •* English Constitutioa.~ 

24. Pl3nnout±L 

Topics and Reference^, 

I. Self-government forced on the "Maydower'' Pilgrims, a. 
The "Maynower Comp^ict" \^:ext in Preston. 2v)-3i : MacDcmalvi. 
i. 33,34: Lamed. /C,<:.ir ^t/,: Hart, C>«//^/V, i. 344V 3. The 
colony a selfnx^nstituted republic, existing by sutterance. Fiske, 
Ctfi/ o^V, 192. 



TOPICS. RFFF.REXCES. AXD RESEARCH. // 

25. Massachusetts. 

Tones AND Rffeke>ccf.s. 

I. Early political structure of the Massachusetts colony, a. Its 
endowment with selt-govemment by royal charter. 3. Its power 
:o control its own membership as a body politic. W msor. Bos f on, 
i. 32^>-333 : Doyle, ii. 120. 121 12CV131 : Fiske. B^^'nnin^, g6, 
105-ioS. 

4. Admittance of none but church members to pohtical rights. 
Winsor. Bosfifn^ i. 148-1 55; Fiske, Bi^^^sMfiin^s^ 248-251; Doyle, 
ii. 146-14S. 

5. Creation of a representative legislature. Doyle, ii. 13S-145: 
Fiske. Ox'iV C?<n'V, 147-149 ; Hart, ConUmp's. i. 373-377. 
Research. — Some of the qualifications for voting now required 

in different American States. Lalor. iii. 826-833 ; Lamed. Ki'iiiiv 
Kif., \\. 675-677. 

26. Connecticut. 

Tones AND References. 

I. Peculiar transfer of town and church organizations from 
Massachusetts. 2. Spontaneous creation of a commonwealth 
government. 3. The "Fundamental Orders '\text in Hart. c>//- 
Ump's, i. 415-419; MacDonald. i. 60-65 ; Preston, 7S-S4; O. S. 
L^iif,. S\ Johnston, Conn., 56-64; Fiske, CivtJ Go7f^f, 192. 103: 
Fiske. B^^'nnini^^. 127, 128. 

4. The •• Fundamental Agreement '* of New Haven. Fiske, Be- 
^'f{n:'r:i^s. 135, 136; Li\*ermore. 23. 
Research. — Written constitutions. Fiske, Civil Go%''t, ch. vii. 

27. Rhode Island. 

Topics and Referenxes. 

I. Self-organization of government by Roger WiUiams and his 

followers. 2. Their separation of church and state. J. R. Green, 

13, 14: Laiier, 46-4S. 

Research. — Reasons for and against an exercise of p>olitical au- 
thority in matters of religion. 

28. Maryland 
Topics and References. 

I. Feudal character of the sovereigntA* transferred to Lord 
Biltiniore. 2. Nature of the "palatinate*' created by his patent 



7^ POLITICAL AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT. 

(text in Preston, 62-77 ; MacDonald, i. 53-59). 3. His powers 
and their limitation. Fiske, Old Va., i. 256-266, 269-272, 275-281 ; 
Fiske, Civil Gov^t, 1 50-1 51; Browne, 18-20; Eggleston, Be- 
ginners^ 234-236. 

4. Rise of the representative assembly in Marj-land. Fiske, Old 
Fa., i. 283-285 ; Browne, 35-36. 

Research. — Palatinates in Europe. Earned, Ready Ref. 

29. Constitutional Diifferences and Fundamental 

Likeness. 

Topics and References. 

I. Variety of political constitutions in the early colonies. 2. The 
colonies alike in having representative legislatures. 3. Distinction 
of English colonies in this respect. Hinsdale, Am. Gov't, 33-35 ; 
Fiske, Civil Gov't, 154-156; Schouler, Const. Studies, 9-17 ; Johns- 
ton, The U. S., 9. 

4. Peculiar survival of representative government among the 
English people. 5. Their recent struggle for its preservation. 
Fiske, Civil Gov't, 39, 40 ; Lamed, England, 23, 373-420 ; Green, 
ch. viii. sects. 3-9. 

Research. — The Germanic origin of representative government. 
Fiske, Am. Pol. Ideas, 69-72. 

30. Local Governments. — Town, Parish, County, 

Hundred. 

Topics and Referenxes. 

I. Early English origin of town meetings. 2. Later English 
origin of parish or vestry meetings. 3. Township and parish sys- 
tems combined by the New Englanders. 4. Government in New 
England built up from the democratic towns. Fiske, Civil Gov't, 
35-41, 16-21 ; Fiske, Am. Pol. Ideas, 31-53; Doyle, iii. 10-17. 

5. Parish and county systems in Virginia and the " hundred " in 
Maryland. Hosmer, A. S. Freedom, 11 8-1 21 ; Fiske, Civil Gov't, 
S7-66, 75-77. 

Research. — The system of local government organization in the 
student's own State. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 79 

31. Social Structure and Character of Virginia and 

Maryland. 

Topics and References. 

I. Early Virginia colonists mainly royalists and churchmen. 

2. Expulsion of Puritans and immigration of defeated Cavaliers. 

3. Aristocratic influence of tobacco culture. 4. Conditions ad- 
verse to the rise of towns. Fiske, Old Va., ii. 9-18, 23-30, 34- 
35, 174-181,203-218; Hosmer, A.S. Fi^eedom, 122-125; Thwaites, 
96-98, 100-104, 106-109. 

32. Social Structure and Character of New England. 

Topics and References. 

I. Religious selection of the New England colonists. 2. The 
Enghsh classes represented in them. 3. Conditions of life tending 
toward democracy. Winsor, Boston^ \. 148-149 ; Fiske, Am. Pol. 
Ideas., 17-31 ; Fiske, Beginitings, 140-151 ; Doyle, iii. 57-64 ; Wee- 
den, i. 281-282; Hosmer, Ada^ns, 89. 

33. New Netherland. — Patroon System. 

Topics and References. 

I. The system of landholding undertaken in the Dutch colony. 
2. Its failure and the evil results. O'Callaghan, i. 11 2-1 28; 
Schuyler, i. 11-26; Fiske, D. and Q. CoVs,'}. 133-140; MacDonald, 
i. 43-50. 

34. Slavery and Indentured Servitude. 

Topics and References. 

I. Beginnings of slavery in the colonies. 2. The system of in- 
dentured servitude. Bruce, i. cli. ix ; Fiske, Old Va., ii. 181-203 ; 
Cooke, 119-123 ; Thwaites, 98-100 ; Doyle, i. 66-68; Ballagh. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE COLONIES UNDER CHARLES IL AND JAMES IL 

1 660- 1 688. 

35. Virginia under Charles II. With the new king, 
Charles 1 1., the Royalist or Cavalier party, crushed a 
dozen years before in England, came back into power 
(1660) and had its revenge. Then the English Puritans 
were oppressed, and the Puritan colonies in America had 
nothing but hostility to expect. Nevertheless, the latter 
suffered less than the planters of the south. A hard 
blow to the prosperity of Virginia and Maryland was 
struck by one of the first enactments of the new govern- 
Navigation rn^nt. Called the Navigation Act of 1660, which 
Act, 1660. ^yjjj ^Q described on a later page. It shut the 
tobacco planters from every market for their product 
except England, which could not take up the whole sup- 
ply. This brought down the price to a ruinous point, 
and left unsalable crops on the planters' hands. For the 
consolation of the aggrieved Virginians, their old gov- 
ernor. Sir William Berkeley, whom they had reinstated 
without waiting for authority, and who went to England 
to make his bow to the restored king in 1661, came back 
with instructions that were full of piety and exceedingly 
wise. He was "to take especial care that Almighty 
God be devoutly and duly served," " the Book of Com- 
mon Prayer as now established read," and laws "for the 
suppression of vice, debauchery, and idleness " passed. 
He was to encourage the planters " to build towns upon 



UNDER CHARLES II. AND JAMES II. 8l 

every river," — " one town at least to be built upon 
every river." ^ 

It is to be feared that Sir William did not keep these 
instructions in mind ; for his government in Virginia 
thereafter was not one that would cultivate piety or en- 
courage the building of towns. He had always been a 
despot by nature, and he now became more despotic than 
before. His royal master was beginning already to set 
as vile an example of bad government as England ever 
knew, and Berkeley seems to have copied the pattern in 
several respects. He surrounded himself, it was charged, 

with scandalous favorites, who allowed broken 

Berkeley's 

private fortunes to be repaired at public expense, despotism, 

r 1 1661-1676. 

Just as England, in the first excitement of the 
country over its restored king, had elected a Parliament 
of Cavaliers who did everything that his majesty wished, 
so Berkeley, in 1661, secured a House of Burgesses that 
gave him a free rein. For Mteen years he kept the sub- 
servient House in existence, not allowing it to be dis- 
solved. Practically, the political rights of the colonists 
were suppressed, while their economic condition grew 
steadily worse, and the result was an increasing state of 
discontent. 

36. New England and the King. 1660-1661. The 
Puritan colonies of New England fared better than Cav- 
alier Virginia, for some years. There was no lack of hos- 
tile feeling toward them, in and around the English court, 
and it was fomented by the sufferers from persecution 
in Massachusetts, who bore complaints to the king ; but 
the solid strength which that colony had now attained, 
buttressed by the three lesser colonies in the New 
England confederation, was not encouraging to a hasty 

^ Sainsbury, Calendar of State Papers : Colonial^ 1661-68, 
p. no. 



82 THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH. 

attack. The colonists took care to provoke no attack, and 
sent loyal addresses, to give assurance of the affection 
with which they welcomed the king to his reerected 
throne. Massachusetts was the first of the four united 
colonies (December, 1660) to make that dutiful offering; 
but, as if to prevent any possible misunder- 

Massachu- ^ . i i • i • 

setts asserts standins: of what it conceived to be its relations 

her "Lib- ^ 

erties." to the English crown, this was followed a few 

1661. ^ . ^ 

months later by an important statement " Con- 
cerning our Liberties," which set forth the powers that 
*'the Governor and Company" believed to be conferred 
on them bv the patent or charter received from King 
Charles the First. That patent, they declared, made 
them '' a body politic, in fact and in name," "vested with 
the power to make freemen," which " freemen have power 
to choose annually a governor," etc., and " to set up all 
sorts of officers," having "full power and authority . . . 
for the government of all people here . . . without ap- 
peal, excepting law or laws repugnant to the laws of 
England ; " and such " government is privileged ... if 
need be bv force of arms, to defend themselves, both by 
land and sea." Finally, they declared, " we conceive any 
imposition . . . contrary to any just law of ours not re- 
pugnant to the laws of England, to be an infringement 
of our right." 

37. Connecticut and Rhode Island Chartered. — 
New Haven Absorbed. 1660-1663. Connecticut, 
Plymouth, and New Haven followed the example of 
Massachusetts in sending loyal addresses to the king. 
Rhode Island had acknowledged and proclaimed King 
Charles in advance of them all. The memorial of Con- 
necticut was followed by her governor, the younger John 
Winthrop, who went to England in the summer of 1661 
to solicit a charter from the king. He was a gentleman 



UNDER CHARLES II. AND JAMES II. 83 

of such tact and address that he secured a charter which 
annexed the settlement at New Haven to the 

Connectl- 

colony of Connecticut, granting to the latter a cut's 

... charter, 

zone of territory as long as the continent is wide, 

bounded on the north by the line of Massachusetts, on 
the south by the Atlantic, and running from Narragan- 
sett Bay on the east " to the South Sea on the west." 
New Haven resisted this arbitrary annexation without 
avail. Its people had given particular offence to the king 
by sheltering and shielding two of the judges (Colonel 
Whalley and Colonel Goffe) of the court which Regicides 
tried the late king and sentenced him to death. England 
Those *' regicides," as they were called, being 166O-I661. 
pursued by royal officers, were hidden in New Haven and 
its neighborhood and helped to escape. Hence the readi- 
ness with which Connecticut was permitted to annex the 
smaller colony. It was a proceeding so intolerable to 
some in New Haven that they mis^rated a few „, ^, 

-' ^ Migration 

years later (1666-67) to what had then become to the 

-' ^ ' ' Passaic. 

New Jersey, and founded Newark, on the Pas- 
saic ; while Mr. Davenport, the father of the colony, with- 
drew to Boston and ended his days in that town. 

The Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, as well 
as Connecticut, had success at this time in applying for a 
royal charter (issued in 1663), and the usual carelessness 
of the day in such matters described conflicting bound- 
aries. The Rhode Island charter was made 

Rhode 

notable bv a clause declarino^ : '' Our royal will island's 
^ , ... charter, 

and pleasure is that no person within the said 

colony, at any time hereafter, shall be in any wise mo- 
lested, punished, disquieted, or called in question, for any 
differences in opinion in matters of religion." This re- 
spectful concession to the principle of religious liberty 
is made extraordinary by the fact that, when the charter 



84 



THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH. 



containing it was issued, the king and his party were 

suppressing in England every form of religious worship 

except that of the established church. 

38. The Founding of the Carolinas. 1663-1693. 

Three months before the issuing of the charter to Rhode 

Island (March, 1663), another was granted to a company 

of high personages, resulting in the founding of a new 

proprietary colony, out of which came our two Carolinas, 

North and South. This charter created a " pa- 

ofthecaro- latinatc," like that of Lord Baltimore (see 
linas. . , 

sects. 6 and 28). r urthermore, m the spirit 

of the Rhode Island charter, it added to those extensive 

sovereign powers a special permission to be indulgent to 

people who ''cannot, in their private opinions, conform 

to the public exercise of religion according to the liturgy, 

form, and ceremonies of the Church of England." 

The territory of the newly chartered colony, called 

the Province of Carolina, 

had been em- 
Early settle- , , 

ments from braced m va- 

Vlrginia. ^ 

nous former 
grants, but never occu- 
pied in any effectual way. 
Two small settlements 
from Virginia, on Albe- 
marle Sound, east of the 
Chowan, had been made 
in 1653 and 1662. These 
became the nucleus of 
the colony in its northern 
part. Between 1665 and 

Slavery and I^/O, im mi- 
servitude, grants from Barbados and from England planted 
settlements farther south, on the Cape Fear River and at 




EARLY SETTLEMHNTS IN THE 
CAROLINA GRANT. 



UNDER CHARLES II. AND JAMES II. 85 

the point where the city of Charleston now stands. In 
1672 the colony received a governor from Barbados, Sir 
John Yeamans, who brought with him a number of negro 
slaves. 

A constitution for Carolina had been drafted by a hand 
no less distinguished than that of the great English phi- 
losopher, John Locke. He prepared it as the secretary 
of the Earl of Shaftesbury, one of the proprietors, and 
the instrument is supposed to have represented the views 
of that nobleman much more than his own. Its main 
purpose, as stated in the preamble, was ''that the gov- 
ernment of this province may be made most agreeable to 
the monarchy under which we live," ''and that we may 
avoid erecting a numerous democracy." It provided for 

the creation, on one hand, of an hereditary no- 

. , Locke's 

bility, of "landgraves" and "casiques," with a "grand 
feudalized land system and system of courts ; on 
the other hand, of a body of serfs, called " leet-men" and 
"leet-women," whose serfdom should be perpetual; for, 
said the constitution, "all the children of leet-men shall 
be leet-men, and so to all generations." In addition to 
the serf system, it established negro slavery, and every 
"freeman" was given "absolute power and authority 
over his negro slaves." It is gratifying to know that this 
"grand model" of government, as it was called, could 
not be made to work, and was abrogated in 1693. Even 
after that time the settlements in Carolina (already 
treated as in two sections and described as " our colony 
north-east of Cape Fear" and "our colony south-west of 
Cape Fear") languished for some years in a disordered 
and unprosperous state. 

39. Conquest of New Netherland, which becomes 
New York. 1664. The list of English colonies in 
America was now increasing fast. Two more were added 



86 THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH. 

in 1664, as a consequence of the capture of New Nether- 
land from the Dutch. England had never given up her 
claim to that important territory between the two groups 
of her American colonies, and the time for enforcing 
it was thought to be reached in 1664. Several reasons 
for that conclusion were found, and the king and his 
ministers resolved to make a sudden seizure of the Dutch 
settlements without any previous declaration of war. 
Before doing so, in March, 1664, the king issued a patent 

to his brother James, Duke of York, grant- 
Grant to the . , . 11 , . , 1. , 
Duke of mo^ to that prmce all the territory that lies be- 

York, 1664. . 

tween the Connecticut and Delaware rivers, to- 
gether with Long Island and several other islands, and a 
certain district in Maine. This nullified the grant lately 
made to Connecticut and the older grant to Massachu- 
setts, so far as concerned everything west of the Con- 
necticut River ; but tricks of that sort were nothing to a 
Stuart king. In April the Duke of York commissioned 
Colonel Richard Nicolls to be his deputy-governor in 
the great province thus given him, over which his powers 
of government were not to be those of a palatine prince, 
but had no other limit save that of conformity to English 
law. Within a few days the same Colonel Nicolls was 
appointed by the king to head a commission, instructed 
commis- *' ^^ ^^^^^ ^^^ several colonies of New England, 
visifNew ^"^ ^^ examine and determine all complaints 
England, ^j-jj appeals in all causes, as well military as 
criminal and civil, and to proceed in all things for settling 
the peace and security of that country." The projected 
seizure of New Netherland appeared, therefore, to be con- 
nected in the plans of the king with a design against 
the independence of New England. 

In May Colonel Nicolls and his associates sailed from 
England with a small fleet and several hundred troops. 



UNDER CHARLES II. AND JAMES II. 8/ 

After a short stay at Boston they went on to New Am- 
sterdam and made an easy conquest of the place. The 
stout-hearted Dutch governor, Stuyvesant, would have 
defended his little town if he could ; but his force was 
small, his fortifications were slight, and the inhabitants, 
many of them disaffected, would not take arms. He 
surrendered on the 6th of September, obtaining quite 
favorable terms. Colonel Nicolls assumed the jjg^ ^jjj_ 
governorship, and his first act was to change ^ecomS 
the name of New Amsterdam to New York. ^^''^York. 
Soon afterward, the province in general was given the 
same name. Fort Orange was called Albany, and other 
names were changed. 

40. Origin of New Jersey. 1664. Two months in 
advance of the capture of his province, the Duke of York 
had sold to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret that 
portion of it which lies between the Hudson and Dela- 
ware rivers, from Cape May to a line drawn from 41 ° 40' 
of north latitude on the Delaware to 41° on the Hudson. 
This tract was to be called New Jersey, in commemora- 
tion of a gallant defence of the isle of Jersey made by 
Sir George Carteret, against the Parliamentarians, in the 
English civil war. It was conveyed to the new proprie- 
tors with all the powers of government given in the royal 
grant to the duke. In the following February (1665) 
the proprietors issued a very liberal frame of government, 
called "The Concession and Agreement of the Lords 
Proprietors," pledging freedom of conscience and provid- 
ing for the representation of the ** freemen of the pro- 
vince " in a legislative body. 

41. Resistance to the King's Commissioners in 
Massachusetts. 1664-1666. Meantime, Colonel Nic- 
olls was settling the government of New York, and his 
colleagues of the New England Commission were striv- 



88 THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH. 

ing in vain to carry out their instructions and exercise 
authority within the jurisdiction of the chartered Governor 
and Company of Massachusetts Bay. In Connecticut, 
Plymouth, and Rhode Island, the Commissioners were 
allowed to hear certain appeals to them, as their commis- 
sion directed ; but Massachusetts would permit nothing 
of the kind. ''The Commissioners," wrote one of them 
(Sir Robert Carr), in a subsequent report, "visited all 
the other colonies before this, hoping that their submis- 
sion would have abated the refractoriness of this, which 
the Commissioners much feared ; " " but neither examples 
nor reason could prevail with them to let the 

Commls- , . 

sioners' Commissioners hear so much as those particular 

report. 

causes . . . which the king had commanded 
them to take care of." "They of this colony," continued 
Sir Robert, "say that Charles I. gave them power to make 
laws and execute them, and granted them a charter as a 
warrant against himself and his successors, and so long 
as they pay the fifth of all gold and silver ore [which, if 
any should be found, the Massachusetts charter reserved 
to the crown], they are not obliged to the king but by 
civility. They hope by writing to tire the king, the lord 
chancellor and the secretaries, and say they can easily 
spin out seven years by writing, and before that time a 
change may come." ^ 

They did, in fact, " spin out " the controversy for 
twenty years, defending what they had declared to be their 
"liberties" (see sect. 36) with a determination that seems 
amazing when we remember that, much as the colony 

had prospered, its total population was probably 

Spinning i t 

out the con- less than 30,000, that opposition to the runner 

troversy. 

church members and ministers was strong and 
growing, and that many substantial inhabitants con- 
1 New York State, Documents, iii. 10. 



UNDER CHARLES II. AND JAMES II. 89 

demned the attitude taken toward the king. The minor- 
ity controlling the government went forward with no 
wavering or yielding in their independent course. 

Territorial rights were defended as resolutely as po- 
litical rights. One construction of the language of the 
Massachusetts charter would give the colony a boundary 
three miles to the north of the headwaters of the Merri- 
mac, and take in a larsre part of what is now 

. , Disputed 

New Hampshire and Maine ; another construe- northern 

boundary, 
tion would place it three miles beyond the mouth 

of that stream. The king's commissioners adopted the 
latter interpretation, and removed the Massachusetts offi- 
cials in Maine. On the first opportunity they were rein- 
stated by the General Court at Boston ; and this was 
done in the face of a royal command ''that the gov- 
ernment of the Province of Maine continue as the Com- 
missioners have left it." The king's missive which bore 
this plain mandate (April, 1666) commanded further that 
the governor of the colony, Richard Bellingham, and oth- 
ers, should be sent to England ''to attend his Majesty," 
" when all allegations or pretences on behalf of said col- 
ony shall be heard." ^ Neither command was obeyed. 

It is evident that the king and his counsellors knew 
not what to do with this audacious colony. If they had 
had no troubles at home, they might have brought force 
to bear ; but England was sickening already of its restored 
king and his scandalous court. So the rulers of Massa- 
chusetts could take advantage of royal embarrassments, 
as their predecessors had done thirty years before. 

42. Berkeley's ill-government in Virginia. 1660- 

1676. While Puritan Massachusetts was thus hardened 

in the temper of independence, Cavalier Virginia was 

going through an experience which tended, at least, to 

1 Sainsbury, Calendar of State Papers: Colonial^ 1661-68, p. 372. 



90 THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH. 

produce the same state of mind. As stated before (sect. 
35), Governor Berkeley, once popular, was making him- 
self odious by a manner of government like that of the 
English king and court. He and the king between 
them were said to have let loose on the colony a devour- 
ing swarm of official parasites ; and, even in 

Xioss of 

pouucai local matters, the people had been deprived of 

rights. 

political rights. Formerly they had elected the 
parish vestries, which managed certain local affairs ; but 
the boards of vestrymen had acquired power to fill 
vacancies in their own number ; and so the people were 
shut out from all action on matters of public concern. 

A most flagrant illustration of the king's shameless 
contempt of public and private rights was given to the 
Virginians in 1673, when he signed a grant which turned 
them and their country, like an estate with serfs, over to 
two favorites, the Earl of Arlington and Lord Culpeper, 
whom he wished to reward. That atrocious grant was 
Grant to At- ^^^ ^^^ nature of a lease of the colony for thirty- 
cSSeper^* One years. During that time Arlington and 
1673. Culpeper were to be its lords, controlling its 

government, taking its revenues, and wringing from it as 
much profit as they could. The outraged colonists sent 
a delegation to London which succeeded in bu)ing the 
consent of the holders of the grant to a cancellation of 
its worst features, and in winning the promise of a char- 
ter that would give the colony some rights of its own. 
The charter was actually drawn up; but sinister influ-. 
ences, always working in the courts of the Stuart kings, 
kept it from the king's hand, and it was never signed. 

43. Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia. 1676. The 
increasing disaffection in Virginia, caused by all these 
wrongs, was brought at last to an outbreak in 1676, by 
the failure of' Governor Berkeley to defend settlers in 



UNDER CHARLES II. AND JAMES II. 9I 

the northern parts of the colony against a savage In- 
dian attack. A crowd of maddened planters came to- 
gether in May, placed themselves under the command of 
a resolute young man, Nathaniel Bacon, and prepared 
to take the field. Bacon applied to the governor for a 
commission, and received v^hat he took to be a promise, 
whereupon he and his followers began their march. 
They were soon overtaken by a proclamation command- 
ing them to disperse. Some obeyed, but the larger part 
went on and drove the savages from their bloody work. 
Berkeley, in great wrath, gathered a mounted troop and 
set out to put Bacon under arrest ; but he was stopped 
in his course by a rising at Jamestown, so threatening 
that he had to hasten back and make terms with the 
insurgents, by conceding the election of a new 
House of Burgesses, to be assembled at once. House of 
Bacon was one of the burgesses elected. He 
acknowledged the illegality of his action, the governor 
pardoned all concerned, and peace seemed to be restored. 
The Assembly then proceeded to pass acts which re- 
formed many of the abuses of recent years. No doubt 
Bacon was active in these measures, and no doubt the 
old governor entertained ugly feelings toward all who 
had a hand in the work. 

What he planned, or what he did, has never been 
learned ; but Bacon is said to have had warning of 
treacheries that endangered his life. He disappeared 
from Jamestown one night, and soon returned with a fol- 
lowing of 600 armed men, demanding to be commis- 
sioned for another campaign against the Indians. The 
commission was issued and used with prompt effect ; 
but in the midst of his operations on the frontier Bacon 
was denounced by the governor as a rebel, and a procla- 
mation was issued against him. Then followed a brief 



92 THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH. 

period of actual civil war, in which Governor Berkeley 
seemed to be vanquished completely ; but Bacon, at the 
moment of his triumph, was prostrated by a sudden ill- 
ness and died (October, 1676). What he would have done 
had he lived, it is impossible to judge. He had 

Bacon's . , . ^ o 

death and shown commandme^ qualities, and the movement 

character. . 

he led seems more democratic in spirit than the 
Massachusetts resistance to King Charles's commission- 
ers, a few years before. Virginia and Massachusetts, the 
two chief colonies, were anticipating strangely, by a 
hundred years, the lead they would take in establishing 
the independent political rights of the transplanted Eng- 
lishmen in America. 

Bacon's party fell to pieces when he died, and the 
Berkeley's governor recovered full power, which he used 
revenge. ^^^ ^ vengeance more savage than has been 
known in America since. Twenty-two of the leading in- 
surgents were executed, and many more were punished 
heavily, in less brutal ways. In the following spring the 
old governor was recalled, and soon after reaching Eng- 
land he died. Colonel Chicheley and Lord Culpeper were 
successive governors during the next few years. The 
colony had made some recovery of popular rights, as the 
consequence of the late rising ; but there seems to have 
been little of political life, and the general poverty, caused 
Tobacco by ^^^^ prices of tobacco, was great. After re- 
riot, 1682. peated attempts to reduce the supply of to- 
bacco by a general stoppage of production for one yeaf, 
there was finally a mob-rising, in 1682, to destroy the 
plants, and this was not suppressed until some of the 
ringleaders had been hanged. 

44. King Philip's War in New England. 1676- 
1678. The Indian outbreak in Virginia, which Bacon 
crushed, was nearly simultaneous with one that gave to 



UNDER CHARLES II. AND JAMES II. 93 

all New England its most terrible experience of savage 
war. This war in New England was begun by that tribe 
of the Wampanoags, or Pokanokets, whose friendship 
had been won by the Pilgrims at their first coming, 
and preserved in appearance for more than fifty years. 
There seem to have been no flagrant wrongs of cause of 
which the Indians could complain ; but they were ^^® "^"* 
made to feel more and more that the white men were 
their masters ; they were called to account for what they 
did by the white men's magistrates ; they had sold lands 
which they were sorry they had given up ; they had lost 
independence, and their pride was sore. An outbreak 
was brought about in 1675 by the trial and execution of 
three Wampanoags for the murder of one of their own 
race. It was led by the son and successor of Massa- 
soit, named Metacom by his own people, but called Philip 
by the whites. Philip began war in June, 1675, by de- 
stroying two villages, killing men, women, and children 
with tortures too horrible to be described. Massachu- 
setts sent speedy help to Plymouth, and the Wampa- 
noags were driven from their own territory to 
that of the Nipmucks, who joined them in furi- settle- , 
ous attacks on settlements in the Connecticut 
valley, and on those farther east, almost to Boston itself. 
In October the Narragansetts were found to be mak- 
ing ready to take the field, and were surprised in their 
camp by an attack so destructive that their strength was 
broken by the single blow. Wherever the savages could 
be reached and struck, they stood no chance against the 
white man's wrath ; but most of the country was still 
covered with forest, in which they could watch for op- 
portunities to surprise some settlement or ambush some 
troop on the march. Warfare of that horrible kind went 
on for nearly two years, spreading to the Indians of New 



94 THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH. 

Hampshire and Maine. It was ended in the summer of 
167S, when Philip — called King Philip — was 
King ° hunted down and slain. A thousand white men 
'" and a great number of women and children 
perished in the war; many women and children were 
carried into barbarous captivity ; over forty towns had 
suffered, and twelve were destroyed. The white popula- 
tion of New England at about the time of the outbreak 
of King Philip has been estimated at 60,000, fully half 
of it in Massachusetts ; the Indians are supposed to have 
numbered about 36,000. Many of these, including the 
Mohegans as a whole, took no part in the war. Of the 
tribes that took part, few male members were left ; most 
of those not slain were sent to the West Indies to be 
sold as slaves. 

45. English Loss and Recovery of New York. — 
Governor Andros. 1673-1674. These years of trouble 
in America had been years of war and of grave threat- 
ening to domestic peace in England, whose people suf- 
fered more and more from the total want of principle 
and of self-respect in their king. His shameful war with 
Holland after the seizure of New York was followed by 
a still more shameful war with the same country 
war with in 1672. In the course of this latter war the 
Dutch recaptured New York and held posses- 
sion of it for six months (1673-74). Then, when public 
feeling in England compelled the king to make peace, 
Holland yielded the colony a second time, and it was 
granted once more to the Duke of York. 

On recovering the province, in 1674, the Duke of York 
sent out a new governor. Major Edmund Andros (after- 
ward Sir Edmund), who played an important part in 
American history during the next fifteen years, and left 
a bad name in it, because of the hardness and harsh- 



UNDER CHARLES 11. AND JAMES II. 95 

ness with which he used his arbitrary powers. His vigor 
was useful in some important matters, especially Alliance 
in measures which established an alliance of the p/^*^® 
English with the Five Nations of the Iroquois, n**^°^s. 
and organized the management of Indian affairs. He 
was not so careful, however, to cultivate the good-will of 
his subjects and neighbors. The duke's province, by the 
terms of his grant, extended eastward to the Connecticut 
River; but Colonel Nicolls, the first English governor, 
saw that it was unwise to try to steal so much territory 
from the colony of Connecticut, and made a compromise, 
which placed his boundary only twenty miles beyond the 
Hudson. Andros, on the contrary, attempted to enforce 
the full claim ; but the men of Hartford faced him so 
resolutely, even in the midst of their dreadful 

^ , Long Island 

Indian war, that he drew back. He did, how- added to 

. New York. 

ever, secure the whole of Long Island, which 

had been in dispute between Connecticut Englishmen at 

one end and Manhattan Dutchmen at the other. 

A more irritating conflict arose between Andros and 
Philip Carteret, governor of New Jersey. The grantees 
of the New Jersey province, Carteret and Berkeley, had 
divided it between them, and Berkeley had sold g^ie of 
his part — West Jersey — to two Quakers. By jjjseyto 
the Dutch reconquest, in 1673, the grant was Q^^®"- 
supposed to be extinguished, and the Duke of York, on 
recovering his proprietorship, made a new grant of East 
Jersey to Carteret, which seemed to convey no political 
sovereignty, as the original grant had done, but mere 
ownership of the soil. Andros, accordingly, claimed to 
be governor of New Jersey, as well as New York, and 
seized the person of the Jersey governor ; but his con- 
duct was disapproved by the Duke of York, who then 
conveyed to Carteret full governing powers. The same 



96 THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH. 

was done to the Quaker purchasers of West Jersey, where 
the contentious Andros had been ruling with an equally 
high hand. 

Andros was now called to England, and a better man. 
Colonel Thomas Dongan, was sent o.ut in his place. 
Meantime, the deputy-governor of New York had trouble 
with the people, who would not endure any longer to be 
governed in a purely arbitrary way. Amongst all the 
New York's English colonies, theirs only had no represen- 
semuj,' tative legislature, and their demand for an As- 
1683. sembly became now so resolute that it moved 

the duke. The new governor brought instructions for 
an election, which was held soon after he arrived, and 
the first representative Assembly in New York was con- 
vened in October, 1683. 

46. William Penn. In New Jersey, the two Quaker 
buyers of Lord Berkeley's grant had quarrelled soon after 
their purchase was made, and William Penn, the fore- 
most member of their sect in England, was called in to 
arbitrate between them. This resulted in Penn's becom- 
ing engaged, as a trustee, in the management of West 
Quaker pur- Jersey affairs. A little later, East Jersey was 
East Jer- purchased from Sir George Carteret by Penn 
sey, 1682. ^^^ others, and so the whole New Jersey pro- 
vince passed under Quaker control. In its Quaker char- 
acter it was soon overshadowed by another, which arose 
beside it, as Penn's personal domain. 

This excellent man, William Penn, the son of a dis- 
tinguished English admiral. Sir William Penn, had been 
reared in habits of wealth, in the midst of the influences 
of a corrupt and frivolous court, but had broken away 
from them all. At the age of eighteen or nineteen, while 
a student at Oxford, he joined the most despised and 
abused of religious sects, because the simple purity and 



UNDER CHARLES II. AND JAMES II. 97 

Christian democracy of its teaching took hold of his rea- 
son and his heart. He bore persecution with his fellow 
believers ; bore the anger of his father and the ridicule 
of his courtly friends, and won respect by the calm 
dignity with which he carried himself through it all. 
Admiral Penn enjoyed the friendship of the king and the 
Duke of York, and their favor was extended to his son. 
In 1670 the admiral died, leaving an ample fortune, be- 
sides a claim on the crown for ^16,000. When the heir 
to the claim, William Penn, became interested in projects 
of Quaker colonization, he offered to take a The grant 
grant of the territory between Maryland, New gy^^^^a 
York, and New Jersey, in payment of the royal ^^^^' 
debt. His proposal was accepted, and in March, 1681, 
he received the patent which conveyed to him that mag- 
nificent domain. He wished to name it either Sylvania 
or New Wales; but the king prefixed "Penn" to the 
" Sylvania," in memory of the admiral, and so the name 
has stood. 

47. The Pounding of Pennsylvania. In this case 
the royal charter created "a province and seigniory," but 
not of the palatine order, the immediate sovereignty of the 
king being reserved. In emergencies, the proprietor and 
his representatives might make laws ; but legislation in 
general for the province was to be with "the 

Terms of 

advice, assent, and approbation of the freemen " Penn's 

1 r r 1 • 1 1 1 • »> charter. 

hereof, "or of their delegates or deputies. 
The king pledged himself and his successors not to im- 
pose any custom or taxation on the province unless "with 
the consent of the proprietary, or chief governor and 
assembly, or by act of Parliament in England." This 
royal affirmation of a jurisdiction in Parliament over colo- 
nial affairs was something new, and indicates the growing 
strength of that body under the restored English crown. 



98 THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH. 

Penn's territory, as conveyed by the royal grant, did 
not touch the sea. That was an imperfection which he 
sought to correct by obtaining a grant from the Duke 
of York of a strip of territory claimed by the latter on 
the western shore of Delaware Bay, and down to Cape 
Henlopen. It was territory covered by the older grant 
to Lord Baltimore ; but the Swedes had settled it first ; 
the Dutch had taken it from the Swedes ; the King of 
England had got it back from the Dutch and had given 
it to the Duke of York ; so that Baltimore's title to that 
part of his Maryland principality seemed to be extinct. 
This grant, and the uncertain definition of Penn's south- 
ern boundary in the king's grant, opened double disputes 
between him and the h^irs of Lord Baltimore, which 
went on for many years. They were not settled until 
"Mason ^7^7 > when the southern boundary of Pennsyl- 
on's Line " ^'^^^i^ was fixed finally by two surveyors, named 
^'^^'^' Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, and became 

famous in later history as " Mason and Dixon's Line." 

In the summer of 1682 Penn sailed from England 
with about 100 colonists, mostly Quakers, and was pre- 
ceded and followed by so many that not less than 30(X) 
are believed to have been brought to the Delaware 
within the first year. Some settlements had been 
planted already on the western bank of the river, and 
one of them, changed in name from Upland to Chester, 
became the seat of government for a time. An assem- 
bly of freemen, held there in December, adopted 
"Frame of a " Frame of Government," submitted by Penn, 
ment," and a body of laws. The people of the district 
on Delaware Bay, called "the lower counties," 
which Penn held only by deed from the Duke of York, 
with no political power, were represented in this assem- 
bly, and were annexed to Pennsylvania by an Act of 



UNDER CHARLES II. AND JAMES II. 99 

Union, passed with their own consent. Freedom of wor- 
ship for all who acknowledged one God was established 
by the laws ; but only those believing in the divinity of 
Jesus Christ could hold office or vote. If qualified by that 
belief, all inhabitants who bought or rented certain quan- 
tities of land, or paid certain taxes, were recognized "free- 
men," entitled to vote. 

Before Penn's arrival in the province, his cousin, Wil- 
liam Markham, sent out as his deputy in 1681, had taken 
steps toward buying lands from the Indians ; and there 
seems to be little doubt that Penn himself had pennand 
a meeting with the Delaware or Lenape tribe, ^^eindians. 
at Shackamaxon, and negotiated a treaty of purchase 
with them there. Though such a meeting has been 
often described and pictured, there is no positive proof 
that it occurred. It is an altogether probable incident, 
however, in William Penn's dealings with the red men, 
whose confidence and affection he won.-^ 

48. Philadelphia. 1682-1685. A few days after his 
landing at Chester, the proprietor was rowed in a barge 
from that town to the site on which he began immedi- 
ately to plan and build the city of Philadelphia. Within 
three years the town was reputed to have 2500 inhabit- 
ants, and the province 8000. Pennsylvania had risen at 
a bound to the rank which she never lost, among the most 
flourishing of the colonies in the New World. A just 
and large-minded man had been made the architect of the 
young commonwealth, and when, in 1684, other affairs 
called him to England, he had reason to feel satisfied 
with the foundations he had laid. 

1 Copies of many of the Indian deeds of land to Penn, stating 
the things given in payment, are in the first volume of Pefinsylvania 
Archives (1664-1747), with facsimiles of the curious pictorial marks 
with which they were signed. 

LofC. 



JOO THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH. 

If he could have stayed with the people as their gov- 
ernor, it is probable that their rights and his authority 
would have found an easy adjustment ; but as it was, 
the Frame of Government worked badly, and underwent 
many unsuccessful changes in the fifteen years of his 
absence abroad. 

In that period, the so-called " lower counties," 

ome over which Penn had no political control, broke 

counues, away from their union with Pennsylvania (1691), 

and assumed practically the independence which 

gave being, at last, to the little State of Delaware. 

49. Annulment of the Massachusetts Charter. 
1684. Since the close of the last war with Holland 
(1674) the political situation in England had been under- 
going a remarkable change. Circumstances had broken 
down the party in opposition to the court, and left the 
king more absolute in power than he had been since the 
early years of his reign.-^ The kingdom suffered heavily 
from this Tory reaction, and its colonies suffered quite as 
much. The old design against Massachusetts, to break 
the stubborn independence of her Puritan rulers, was re- 
newed, with advantages not held before. The king was 
stronger, not only at home, but in the colony itself. A 
party quite of the Tory character was rising, 
Randolph, in the lartre class of people not qualified to 

1676-1684. ° r r 1 

vote. The disaffection had been cultivated art- 
fully by an agent, Edmund Randolph, sent to Boston in 
1676. 
The measures that were taken cannot be traced in de- 

1 It was at this time that the king's party began to be called 
" Tories " and their opponents " Whigs." " Tory " was an epithet 
from Ireland, where it signified an outlaw of the bogs; "Whig" 
was a Scotch word of obscure origin ; both were meaningless in 
their political use. 



UNDER CHARLES II. AND JAMES II. lO^ 

tail here. It is enough to say that the cherished charter 
of Charles I. to "the Governor and Company of Massa- 
chusetts Bay" was finally "cancelled, vacated, annihi- 
lated," by a decree of the English Court of Chancery, 
on the 2 1st of June, 1684. The ruin to the Massachu- 
setts colonists which this decree involved was limited by 
nothing but the mercy of the king. It left 
them with no ri2:hts. Their charter was their mercy of 

° . the king. 

title-deed for everything they owned ; it was 
their warrant for everything they had done ; it was the 
ground of everything in their colonial life. To declare 
it void was to declare that the king had never surrendered 
ownership of the soil on which they stood ; that they 
were trespassers on his property and might be dealt with 
as he pleased ; that they had never been empowered to 
organize a colonial government ; that all the acts of their 
colonial government were invalid and all their laws an- 
nulled. They had no reason to hope that the king would 
give the decree any less than this sweeping effect, and 
he showed very soon that no generous intention Death oi 
was in his mind. But before his plans for deal- Charles n. 
ing with the colony had been perfected, he was stricken 
with apoplexy and died, in February, 1685. 

50. The Rule of " Captain-General " Andres. 1686- 
1689. James, Duke of York, who then came to the 
throne, as James II., differed from his late brother, in 
some respects, for the worse. Finding his colony of 
Massachusetts delivered up to him, by an English court, 
for whatever treatment he chose to bestow, he planned 
to crush the other colonies, or most of them, to the same 
state, and then tie them together under one royal gov- 
ernor, who should have the largest possible powers. He 
chose for that office his old hard-handed servant. Sir 
Edmund Andros, who always did what he was told, 



I02 THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH. 

in the most offensive way. Andros, commissioned as 
" Captain-General and Governor of his Majesty's 
Massachu- Territory and Dominion in New England," was 
sent to Massachusetts in 1686 to begin his work, 
and the high-spirited colonists of the Bay writhed under 
his absolute authority for the next three years. Their 
General Court was abolished ; their town meetings were 
stripped of the control of local taxes ; their press was 
gagged ; the writ of habeas corpus was suspended ; all pub- 
lic records were seized and brought to Boston ; arbitrary 
taxes were levied, and property owners paid extortions 
called " quit-rent " to save the titles to their lands. 

Going to New Haven in October, Andros demanded 
a surrender of the Connecticut charter; but the cher- 
Charter ished parchment was spirited away and hidden, 
°*^" as tradition tells, in the hollow trunk of a tree, 

known afterwards as the "Charter Oak." He assumed 
the government of Connecticut, however, as well as that 
of Plymouth, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Maine. 
New York and New Jersey were subjected to his juris- 
diction in the spring of 1688, and he then ruled 
Andros's from the Delaware to the St. Croix, with little 
limit to his power. No change in the govern- 
ment of the other colonies was made ; but a suit to break 
the charter of Lord Baltimore, in Maryland, was begun. 

51. The '♦ Glorious Revolution" in England. 1688. 
Happily the rule of Captain-General Andros, as well as 
that of his royal master, was brief. Before the end of 
the year 1688 a "glorious revolution" (so considered 
and described at the time) drove James H. from Eng- 
land, and called his daughter Mary, with her husband, 
William, Prince of Orange, to the throne. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 103 

TOPICS AND SOGGESTED READING AND RESEARCH. 

35. Virginia under Charles II. 

Topics and References. 

1. Navigation Act of 1660 and its effect on Virginia. Bruce, 
i- 355-365 ; Doyle, i. 306-310. 

2. The restored government of Sir William Berkeley. Cooke, 
216-236; Hart, Conieifip's^ i. 237-241. 

Research. — What is to l>e thought of the instruction from Eng- 
land that Virginia planters should be encouraged "to build 
towns upon every river".? How are towns brought into exist- 
ence .-^ 

36. New England and the King. 

Topics and References. 

I. Attitude of New Englandcrs toward the restored monarchy. 
2. The Massachusetts statement '* Concerning our Liberties." 
Winsor, Boston^ i. 349-356; Doyle, iii. 146-150, 173-175 ] Hart, 
Con/cmp's, i. 454-457. 
Research. — The meaning of the term " a body politic." 

37. Connecticut and Rhode Island Chartered. — 

New Haven Absorbed. 

Topics and References. 

I. Charter for Connecticut secured by the younger John Win- 
throp (text in MacDonald, i. 1 16-1 19 ; I^reston, 96-109). 2. Terri- 
tory granted in the charter. 3. Reasons for hostility to New 
Haven at the English court. Doyle, ii. 150-162 ; Ifart, Con/emp*s, 
420-422. 

4. Migration from New Haven to the Passaic. Eiske, ZJ. and 
Q. Cars, ii. 13, 14. 

5. The Rhode Island charter (text in MacDonald, i, 125-133; 
Preston, 1 10-129). ^^^ provision for religious liberty. Arnold, 
i. ch. ix. 

Research. — Vengeance of the restored English monarchy on 
the '* regicides." Green, 603-604. Persecution of Noncon- 
formists in England. Green, 606-610 ; Gardiner, 585-588, 590 ; 
Earned, Englajid, 449, 451. 



I04 UNDER CHARLES II. AND JAMES II. 

38. The Founding of the Carolinas. 

Topics and Refkrexces. 

I. The palatine proprietary province founded in the CaroHnas. 
2. Previous settlements in the territory of the new colony. 3. Early 
introduction of slavery and servitude. 4. John Locke's constitu- 
tion (text in MacDonald, i. 120-125, 149-168). McCrady, i. ch. 
i.-v. ; Doyle, i. 438-458 ; Fiske, Old Va., ii. 270-278 ; Hart, 
Contemp's^ i. 275-280. 
Research. — John Locke: for what was he distinguished? 

Earned, England, 469. 

39. Conquest of New Netherland, which becomes 

New York. 

Topics and References. 

I. English seizure of the Dutch colonies without a declaration 
of war. 2. The king's grant to his brother, the Duke of York 
(text in MacDonald, i. 133-139). 3. The double commission to 
Colonel Nicolls, 4. The Dutch surrender. 5. Changes of names. 
O'Callaghan, ii. b"k 6, ch. vii ; Fiske, D. and Q. Col's, i. 283-292 ; 
Hart, Co7itenip's, i. 537-541. 

40. Origin of New Jersey. 

Topics and References. 

I. Sale of territory by the Duke of York. 2. Provision for the 
government of the province (text in MacDonald, i. 139, 141). 
Fiske, D. and Q. CoVs, ii. 10-15 5 Hart, Cotitefnp's, i. 563-566. 

41. Resistance to the King's Commissioners in 
Massachusetts. 

Topics and References. 

I. Submission to the commissioners in Connecticut, Plymouth, 
and Rhode Island. 2. Refusal in Massachusetts to let them hear 
appeals. 3. Grounds of the refusal. Hutchinson, i. 229-257 ; 
Winsor, Boston, i. 357-363 ; Palfrey, ii. 582-590, 597-618; Froth- 
ingham, Rise of the Rep., 53-63 ; Doyle, iii. 182-192. 

4. Success of Massachusetts in prolonging the controversy. 
5. Defence of territorial claims of the colony. 6. Disobedience to 



t I 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 105 

royal commands. Palfrey, ii. 618-634 ; Doyle, iii. 192-197 ; Hutch- 
inson, i, 260-269. 

7. Growing opposition to the king of England. Green, 618-621 ; 
Larned, England, 452-456. 

Research. — The claims that conflicted with those of Massachu- 
setts in New Hampshire and Maine. Palfrey, i. 204-206, 524- 
525, ii. 618-621 ; Hutchinson, i. 313-319. 

42. Berkeley's Ill-government in Virginia. 

Topics and References. 

I. The people deprived of political rights. 2. The king's grant 
to Arlington and Culpeper. 3. Unfulfilled promise of a charter. 
Burke, ii, appendix; Doyle, i. 313-319. 

43. Bacon's Rebellion. 

Topics and References. 

I. Immediate occasion for the outbreak. 2. Election of a new 
House of Burgesses and its action. 3. Renewal of hostilities be- 
tween the insurgents and the governor. 4. Bacon's death and its 
consequences. — His character. 5. Berkeley's savage revenge. 
6. Berkeley's successors. — The Tobacco Riot. Burke, ii. 194; 
Cooke, 237-297; Doyle, i. 319-352; Fiske, Old Va., ii. ch. xi. ; 
Hart, Coftte?Hp^s, i. 242-246. 

44. King Philip's War in New England. 

Topics and References. 

I. Causes of the Indian outbreak. 2. Spread of hostilities. 3. 
Consequences of the war to whites and Indians. Fiske, Begin- 
nings^ 211-241 ; Doyle, iii. ch. iii.; Contejnp''s, i. 458-461 ; Hub- 
bard, O. S. Leaf., 88. 

45. English Loss and Recovery of New York. — 
Governor Andros. 

Topics and References. 

I. Affairs in England. — Renewed war with Holland. — Loss 
and recovery of New York. 2. Governor Andros and his aggres- 
sions in Connecticut and New Jersey. 3. Quaker purchase of 



I06 UNDER CHARLES II. AND JAMES II. 

West Jersey. Fiske, D. and Q. CoVs^ ii. 25-61 ; Roberts, i. 103- 
114, 178-186. 

4. New York under Governor Dongan. — Its first Assembly. 
Roosevelt, i'Ww York^ 51-57; Fiske, D. ajui Q. CoPs, ii. 168-171. 

46. William Penn. 

Topics and References. 

I. Penn's engagement in New Jersey affairs, 2. His life and 
character. 3. Circumstances of the royal grant to him of a vast 
American province (text in MacDonald, i. 183). Fiske, D. atid 
Q. CoPs, ii. 114-118, 140-150; Sharpless, 30-39. 
Research, — The early life of Penn. Hodges, ch. i.-iv. 

47. The Founding of Pennsylvania. 

Topics and References. 

I. Character of the proprietary province created by Penn's 
charter. 2. Jurisdiction of Parliament over colonial affairs af- 
firmed. Fiske, D. and Q. CoVs, ii. 151-153. 

3, Additional grant to Penn by the Duke of York. 4. Disputes 
with Lord Baltimore and their settlement. — " Mason and Dixon's 
Line." Hinsdale, Old N. W^., 98-103 ; Fiske, Civil Gov't, 152, 

5. Penn's first settlements. 6. The first Pennsylvania Assem- 
bly and the '* Frame of Government " (text in MacDonald, i. 192- 
199), 7. Annexation of the " lower counties," Y{-a.x\^ Contempt s^ 

8. Penn's dealing with the Indians, Fiske, D. and Q. CoPs, ii. 
158-166. 

Research, — Were the Indians rightful owners of the soil of this 
continent when the whites came to settle upon it? If so, had 
their chiefs the right to sell tracts of it } When making such 
sales, were they likely to understand the nature of the transac- 
tion ? Where one tribe had driven out another, which was the 
rightful owner .? 

48. Philadelphia. 

Topics and References. 

I. The founding of Pliiladelphia and the progress of the colony. 
2. Penn's return to England. — The colony in his absence. 3. 



I 
I 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 10/ 

Political separation of the " lower counties," which became Dela- 
ware. Hodges, ch. v.-vi. ; Fiske, D. and Q. CoVs^ ii. 153-158; 
Hart, Co7ttemp^s, \. 554-557. 

49. Annulment of the Massachusetts Charter. 

Topics and References. 

1. Changed political situation in England. Green, 639-642. 

2. A growing Tory party in Massachusetts. 3. Annulment of 
the Massachusetts charter. — The colony at the mercy of the king. 
Ellis, ch. xiii. ; Winsor, Boston, i. 364-375 ; Frothingham, Rise of 
the Rep., 77-79 ; Fiske, Beginnings, 2^s~^^7 5 Doyle, iii. 284-292, 
298-299 ; Hart, Contempts, i. 462-463. 

4. The king's death. Green, 643. 

50. Rule of '* Captain-General " Andros. 

Topics and References. 

I. Accession of King James II. 2. Rule of Andros as Captain- 
General and Governor of New England. 3. Extension of his 
authority to New York and New Jersey. Hutchinson, i. 353-372 ; 
Winsor, Boston, ii, 1-13 ; Fiske, Beginnings, 267-271 ; Doyle, iii. 
303-323 ; Hart, Contempts, i. 423-425. 

61. The "Glorious Revolution" in England. 

Topics and References. 

I. Expulsion of James II. from the throne. — Accession of Wil- 
liam and Mary. Macaulay, ch. ix. ; Green, 644-651, 657-660 ; Gar- 
diner, 643-648 ; Earned, Eng., 466-467. 



STATE OF THE COLONIES IN THE LAST YEARS 
OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 

The English Revolution of 1688. The English Revolution 
of 1688, which swept the intolerable Stuart dynasty from the 
throne, which riveted upon the monarchy a parliamentary 
constitution that could not any longer be misunderstood, and 
which drew England into a long conflict with France, was an 
event of great importance to the Englishmen of the colonies, 
as well as to those at home. It opened what was 
really a new era in history, on both sides of the sea. 
Before we try to sketch the working of changes produced by 
it on the American side, it will be well to survey briefly the 
state of the colonies when the seventeenth century was draw- 
ing to its close. 

Population of the Colonies. Of the thirteen colonies after- 
ward federated in the Republic of the United States, all save 
Georgia had then been planted, but the Carolinas were not yet 
formally divided, and the separateness of Delaware was not 
New Eng- Q^i^^ ^ ^xe^d fact. Among them, the New England 
land. group was the most populous ; its people had 

gripped the resources of their country with the greatest 
energy, making the most of what it gave them, and their 
communities had acquired the firmest footing in the land. 
Of these Massachusetts was so much in the lead that its 
people far outnumbered all the rest. As estimated by Mr. 
Bancroft, the Bay Colony, together with Plymouth and Maine 
(both small), contained about 44,000 people in 16S8; while 
Connecticut held 17,000 to 20,000, Rhode Island (with 
Providence) 6000, and New Hampshire 6000, making a total 
for New England of 73,000 to 76,000. The same estimate 
gives Virginia a population of 50,000, Maryland 25,000, New 



END OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 109 

York 20,000, Pennsylvania and Delaware 12,000, New Jer- 
sey 10,000, and the Carolinas 8000, together. 'J'Jns reckons 
the total population of the English colonies in America at 
200,000.^ 

Economic Condition. In all the colonies, the products of 
industry were limited in variety, but more so in the south 
than in New England, where every natural resource was 
turned to account as fast as it could be done. Except in 
forest trees, the New England soil gave little that the colo- 
nists could use for outside trade. They cultivated it for their 
own foods, and made early use of its pastures for cattle and 
sheep ; but it yielded them only a small surplus of breadstuffs 
and meats for sale. Their one staple commodity in the early 
years, and their chief one for a long period, was 
fish. Says Mr. Weeden, the economic historian of England 
New England, writing of the period between 1662 
and 1685: "The business of the fisheries enters into all 
the doings of the time. Whenever we turn over the stray 
papers of a seventeenth century merchant, we find evidences 
great and small of his constant intercourse with fish and 
fishermen." The fisheries led to ship-building, for which the 
neighboring forests furnished the best of timber, and both 
together stimulated enterprise in navigation and the carrying 
trade. " Sawing lumber," says Mr. Weeden, " building and 
freighting vessels, constituted commerce;" "but the immedi- 
ate motive to cut timber, or to lay a keel, was in the immediate 
return always ready and waiting for a projected cargo of 
fish.""^ The New Englanders built ships to sell, but they 

kept more and more of them in their own hands, 

1 1 *u I. -1 • • Shipping 

and used them busily, in an increasing commerce andcom- 

with the neighboring colonies, with the West In- ™®^'^®" 

dies, with England, and with Spain. From their own ports 

they carried mostly fish, timber, lumber, masts and spars, 

^ Bancroft, Hist, of the U. S. (author's last revision), ii. 608. 
'^ Weeden, Economic a7id Social Hist, of New England, i. 247, 
371. 



no STATE OF THE COLONIES. 

staves, and sometimes "houses ready framed.'' From south- 
ern ports and the West Indies they took tobacco, sugar, tar, 
pitch, and other commodities, going chiefly abroad. With 
numerous excellent harbors on their coast, the New England- 
ers were impelled by every circumstance to be a maritime and 
commercial people, and the impulse was obeyed. 

Virginia and Maryland were as well supplied as New 
England with good timber, and had no lack of fine harbors, 
on Chesapeake Bay and on their noble rivers ; but they did 
almost nothing in ship-building, took almost no part in the 
carrying trade, and put their forests to little com- 
and Mary- mercial use. They lacked the stimulus and train- 
ing of a great fishing industry ; and the tobacco 
culture in those colonies was stifling to everything else (see 
sect. 31). " The Virginia planter did not, like the New Eng- 
land farmer, have to seek the foreign purchaser ; the buyer of 
the only staple of Virginia sought its plantations." ^ 

In the Carolinas, all industries were still in their small 
beginnings. The northern district was beginning to com- 
pete with New Hampshire and Massachusetts in the expor- 
tation of tar, pitch, timber, and other products of the kind 
TiieCaro- called "naval stores; " the southern district was be- 
Unas. ginning experiments with rice, cotton, and indigo; 

but only rice gave promise, so far, of success. Furs to Eng- 
land, and pork, beef, hides, and tallow to the northern colo- 
nies and the West Indies, were the main exports from the 
Carolinas at this time. 

Pennsylvania was very young as an English colony, and 
Pennsyi- ^^^ early products were altogether from the forests 

yania and ^^^^ the soil : its great mineral riches were scarcely 
New Jer- ^ t> j 

sey. known. In New Jersey the conditions were much 

the same. 

New York was somewhat laggard in growth. Except on 
Manhattan and Long Islands, its settlements were a fringe 
along the banks of the Hudson, up to Albany, with Sche- 

1 Bruce, Economic Hist, of Virginia, ii. 435. 



END OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. Ill 

nectady for a solitary outpost toward the west. The fur 
trade, its chief interest, was greatly cut down by the fierce 
wars of the Five Nations with the French and with the tribes 
of the whole region of the Great Lakes, even to Illinois. 
The farms and forests of the province were furnishing some- 
thing to colonial commerce, in timber and food- 
stuffs, but to no large extent. The city of New 
York, however, was the convenient centre of a good deal of 
trade. 

The English Navigation Ads} All development of the 
resources of the colonies, all attempts to multiply their in- 
dustries and extend their trade, were grievously hampered by 
English laws which aimed to gather every kind of profit from 
them into English hands. The short-sighted selfishness of 
such laws was not peculiar to England, but governed the 
colonial policy of every nation in that age. It expressed it- 
self first in what is known as the Navigation Act of ^^^ ^j 
165 1, passed by the Parliament of the Common- ^^^l- 
wealth of England, after the execution of King Charles. 
That act forbade the importation of goods into England in 
any other than English ships or ships of the country produc- 
ing the goods. Its main purpose was to stop the employment 
of Dutch ships in English trade ; but the commerce of the 
colonies was badly injured by the effects of the act. English 
traders and shippers were not satisfied, however, with this 
law, and in 1660, 1663, and 1672, after the monarchy had 
been restored, fresh enactments were devised for j^^xsot 
the purpose of monopolizing every gain to be got ^|^°' 
from colonial trade. The first of the new Naviga- 1672'. 
I tion Acts required the colonies to import and export every- 
thing in English ships. The next one allowed nothing from 
Europe to enter any colony unless it had been passed through 
(/. <?., been laden at and shipped from) an English port, and 
had been carried " directly thence." The declared object 

^ Bruce, Economic Hist, of Virginia, i. 345-365 ; Weeden, 
1 Economic and Social Hist, of New England, i. 232-241. 



112 STATE OF THE COLONIES. 

of this measure was to keep the colonies in " a firmer de- 
pendence " on the mother country. Finally, the legislation 
of 1672 forbade the shipping of certain enumerated com- 
modities, including tobacco, sugar, cotton, ginger, and indigo, 
from any colony without a bond being given for their deliv- 
ery in England, or else payment of a heavy duty in advance ; 
the purpose being to stop evasions of the law. These op- 
pressive enactments were accompanied and followed by many 
others that were much complained of, under the general 
name of the " acts of trade." 

That the navigation laws and other "acts of trade" did 
not strangle the colonies in their infancy was because they 
could not be fully enforced. The New Englanders, with 
their chartered "home rule," and with their own shipping in 

hand, could not be controlled by the acts ; and that 
Contra- . •' . 

tand was a principal reason for the steady hardening of a 

determination in the English government to break 
the charters, regardless of the bad faith involved. Virginia, 
as a royal colony, and dependent on other ships and shippers 
for the handling of her trade, was more at the mercy of the 
English laws. While the Dutch were at Manhattan, they man- 
aged much contraband trading with Virginia; after they lost 
their footing in America, the navigation acts were more 
strictly enforced in Chesapeake Bay. 

In the earlier years of the colonies, there were none but 
English merchants and ship-owners who watched America to 
make sure, as far as possible, that nothing was bought and 
sold there, nor shipped thence, to the profit of anybody but 
themselves. But as the colonists became able, more and 

more, to ??iake things for themselves, another class, 
" acts oi composed of manufacturers and mechanics, be^ran to 

demand laws for the suppression of all colonial 
industries that could come into competition with their own. 
This demand was just becoming energetic at the time now 
described. It was inspiring strenuous efforts to induce the 
colonists to devote themselves to the production of " naval 



END OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. II3 

stores," — spars, timber, pitch, tar, hemp, etc., — and to let 
lighter manufactures alone. We shall find it working much 
more vigorously in the period that follows. 

Slavery and I?ide7itured Servitude. There were slaves in all 
the colonies, and there were indentured or bound white ser- 
vants (see sect. 34) in them all. Everywhere except in the 
Carolinas the indentured servants, up to this time, outnum- 
bered the slaves. It was not until after the eighteenth cen- 
tury was begun that negro slavery became dominant in the 
labor system of both Virginia ^ and Maryland. In all the colo- 
nies there were Indian slaves, — captives taken in the Indian 
wars, — and their number in the Carolinas was consider- 
able ; elsewhere it was small. In the northern colonies there 
were no industries in which large gangs of slaves could be 
employed with profit, and that kind of unintelligent, driven 
labor never came into extensive use. On moral grounds 
there was no objection to it felt very widely, except Little 
in Rhode Island and amongst the Quakers. Rhode SV°Ms\on 
Island passed an act in 1652 declaring that "no ^0 slavery, 
black mankind or white" shall be "held to service longer 
than ten years." ^ Subject to this limitation, both slavery 
and bond service were tolerated. In the Massachusetts 
"Body of Liberties," adopted in 1641, it was declared: 
"There shall never be any bond slavery, villeinage, or cap- 
tivity amongst us, unless it be lawful captives taken in just 

^ " In 1 67 1 there were 6000 servants to 2000 slaves in Virginia. 
By 1683 the number of servants had doubled, while that of the 
slaves had increased by only one third. From this time forth 
servitude gave way before slavery, which was forced on the colony 
in the large importation of negroes by the royal African Company 
under its exclusive charter. It was the policy of the king, and of 
the Duke of York, who stood at the head of the company, to hasten 
the adoption of slavery by enactments cutting off the supply of in- 
dented servants." Ballagh, Hist, of Slavery in Virginia {Johns 
Hopkins Studies^^ p. 10. 

2 Records of the Colony of R. /., i. 243. 



114 STATE OF THE COLONIES. 

wars, and such strangers as willingly sell themselves or are 
sold to us." ^ In what manner the few negro slaves finally 
found in Massachusetts were obtained does not appear. 
There seem to have been less than 400 in the colony at the 
close of the seventeenth century. 

The Quakers of Pennsylvania began to take ground 
against the importation and purchase of African slaves as 
early as 1696 ; but slavery existed in the province, to a lim- 
ited extent, for more than a century after that time. The 
Indentured number of indentured servants in Pennsylvania was 

servants larger than elsewhere. This resulted from Penn's 
In Penn- o 

syivania. wide advertising of the attractions of his province, 
in Germany and other parts of the continent, as well as 
in England, which drew a multitude of poor people, who 
paid for their passage to America by selling their labor 
in advance for a term of years. A student of the subject has 
estimated that " at least one third of the early immigrants 
were servants."^ In New Jersey they were numerous; they 
were fewer in New York, where more negro slaves were 
owned ; but slavery got no more of an economic footing in 
New York than in other parts of the north. 

Education and Literature. It is a fact undoubted, that the 
early colonists of New England were generally of a class bet- 
ter educated and more intellectual than those who came to 
other settlements in the New World. It was necessarily so, 
because, as a rule, they were people who had been moved by 
a belief — by a deep conviction of mind — to seek the new 
home. We cannot help seeing that the beliefs which moved 

them were thoughtfully formed, even when there 
Early New , * "^ . ' , 

England- seems to be narrowness in some of the grounds on 
firs 

which they rest. They represent a mental quality 

quite above that which appears in the common motives of 

^ Mass. Hist. Soc. Collectiofis, 3d series, vii. 231. 

2 Geiser, Redeinptioncrs and Indcfitured Servants in Pennsyl- 
vania^ p. 27 ; Hart, ed., Am. Hist, told by Contemporaries^ ii. ch. 
xvi. 



END OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. II5 

life. There are proofs of that quality in two facts which 
especially distinguish the New England colonies, when com- 
pared with their neighbors of the middle and southern zone. 
The first appears in the prompt and broad provision for 
public education that was started by the pioneers of Massa- 
chusetts Bay as soon as they had fairly housed themselves 
(see sect. 11), and followed in all the settlements as they 
spread. The second is found in the great body of valuable 
writings that has come down to us from those New England 
colonists of the first and second generations ; the histories, 
narratives, and chronicles, the descriptions, the disquisitions, 
and controversies, which make us acquainted with them, and 
with what they thought and did, so much more than with the 
fathers of our country in other parts. The proportion among 
them of men and women who wielded a vigorous and some- 
times eloquent pen was certainly large for that day. The 
names of William Bradford, Edward Winslow, John 
Winthrop, Nathaniel Morton, Edward Johnson, John land wrft- 
Mason, Francis Higginson, William Wood, John 
Josselyn, Roger Williams, Nathaniel Ward, Daniel Gookin, 
Thomas Hooker, John Cotton, Anne Bradstreet, Increase 
Mather, to say nothing of less noted writers, make up a re- 
markable list, for communities so young and so small. ^ 

In Virginia the widely separated plantation life, and the 
absence of towns, made any such school system as that of 
New England impossible ; but the interest in education was 
not the same. The influence of the government was against 
it, after the overthrow of the London Company (see sect. 5), 
which had planned the founding of a colonial university and 
voted to endow it with 10,000 acres of land. That excel- 
lent project was killed by the killins: of the com- 

4 rr ^ r .1 r t EdUCaUon 

pany. In 1660 a new movement for the foundmg invir- 
of " a college and free school " was started by the ^^*" 
Virginia Assembly, but it languished until 169 1, when the 
college of William and Mary was established, with the help of 
^ Tyler, History of American Literature^ 1 607-1 765. 



Il6 STATE OF THE COLONIES. 

the king and queen, who gave it their name. This seems to 
have been the first educational institution in Virginia, though 
there were, of course, teachers, privately employed. 

Of five Virginia colonists in the first century who wrote 
some account of the country and their experiences in it, only 
two, William Strachey and Alexander Whittaker, were per- 
manent settlers ; the remaining three — namely. Captain John 
Smith, George Percy, and John Pory — were transient in 
their stay. So, too, was George Sandys, who, while holding 
ofiice in Virginia, completed a translation of Ovid that was 
famous in its day. 

Both in schools and in literary production, the other colo- 
nies, in this period, had not much to show. Penn had 
large ideas of education, and was influential, no doubt, in 
bringing about the opening of the Public Grammar 
vaniaand School of Philadelphia, in 1689; but many political 
troubles in the early years of the colony frustrated 
his intention to make that the centre of a system of schools. 
In New York there was a sad neglect of education, and 
more, apparently, after the English took the province than 
before. In the middle of the next century it was said by the 
colonial historian, William Smith, " Our schools are of the 
lowest grade." 

Massachusetts was the first of the colonies to obtain a 
printing-press. It was brought from London, with an equip- 
ment of type, and with several printers, by a min- 
ister named Joseph Glover, and was set up at Cam- 
bridge in 1638. A second press was added to the Cambridge 
printing establishment in 1660, long before any were working 
in other parts of the country. The next to arrive was set up 
near Philadelphia, by William Bradford, in 1686. Seven 
years later Bradford removed his business to New York.^ 

The French and their Claims i?i America. Throughout the 
seventeenth century colonization had been pushed by the 

1 Eggleston, The Tra7isit of Civilization from England to 
America in the Seventeenth Century^ ch. v. ; Fisher, ch. xxi. 



END OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 11/ 

French in the valley of the St. Lawrence, and in the regions 
surrounding the gulf of that name, quite as vigorously as by 
the English on the coasts farther south, but with very dif- 
ferent results. The English colonies were described with 
truth as "plantations;" they were really /Azw/^^ communi- 
ties, well-rooted, and growing with a life and nourishment 
of their own. To a greater or less extent, their people were 
self-governed, self-sustained, self-dependent, — trained for 
the care of themselves, and for feelings that identified them 
more with the country to which they had come than with the 
country they had left. The settlements in New France had 
no such pla7iting ; they were formations, not growths. All 

the energy they possessed was put into them by the 

°-^ "^ ^ Paternally 

paternal government of France, or by the trading governed 

companies that had monopolies in them, or by mis- 
sionary priests. Everything was done for them ; they were 
not allowed to do anything for themselves. Except traders 
and some adventurers, few colonists went to the country 
under any impulse of their own. They were gathered up by 
the king's agents and sent out in ship-loads, mostly young 
men and women, many of whom married with no knowledge 
of each other and were settled on small farms. It is not 
surprising to find the government of New France complain- 
ing that idleness, drunkenness, and disorder prevailed. 

With all the efforts made to send out colonists to New 
France, the white population, about 1683, did not exceed 
10,000, it is said, scattered along both banks of the St. Law- 
rence, as far up as Montreal, where settlement was begun in 
1640. But French missionaries, coiireurs de bois, and ambitious 
explorers had been penetrating the far interior of French ex- 
the continent, learning its geography, obtaining in- Pioration. 
fluence among its Indian tribes, and establishing vast terri- 
torial claims for France, with an energy that the English did 
not imitate in the least. At some time not later than 1640, 
Jean Nicollet had gone beyond Lake Huron to Lake Michi- 
gan. In 1669 Jesuit missions were established at Sault Ste. 



Il8 STATE OF THE COLONIES. 

Marie and Green Bay. In 1673 Father Marquette and Louis 
Joliet made their way from Green Bay to the Mississippi 
River, and down that great stream to the Illinois, on which 
a new mission was planted by Marquette. In 1679 ^^^ 
famous explorer, La Salle, built a vessel on the Niagara River 
and navigated the Great Lakes to the foot of Lake Michigan, 
whence he went on to the Illinois and built a fort. Three 
years later, traversing the same route for the third time, he 
descended the Illinois to the Mississippi and the Mississippi 
to the Gulf, completing the exploration of the great river, and 
formally declaring that he took possession of the v/hole wide 
country drained by its tributaries for the king of France. 

Thus, before the closing of the seventeenth century, the 
French had laid hands on the whole country west of the 
Appalachian mountain ranges, with none practically disput- 
The ^"S their claim to it except the " Five Nations " 

and°uie ^^ ^'■'^ confederacy of the Iroquois. Between those 
iroduois. and the French there was continual war, and the 
latter had been driven, in 1688, to abandon the northern 
shore of Lake Ontario and the whole river St. Lawrence 
above Montreal to their savage foes. This was the situation 
at the opening of a long series of wars which was then at the 
point of outbreak between the English and the French. 1 

1 Parkman, La Sall-e^ and the Discovery of the Great West ; 
Sloane, The French War and the Revolution, ch. iii. ; Hinsdale, 
The Old Northwest, ch. iii.-iv. 



COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT. 
1688-1774. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE PERIOD OF STRIFE WITH FRANCE. 1690-1760. 

52. Overthrow of Andros. — A New Charter for 

Massachusetts. 1689-1691. When news of the flight 
of James II. from England, and of the elevation of King 
William and Queen Mary to the throne, reached Boston, 
in the spring of 1689, Massachusetts rose against Andros, 
as England had risen against James, imprisoned him for 
a time, and then sent him to London, to be dealt with by 
the new king and queen. Strenuous efforts to secure 
a restoration of the old charter were be^un at 

, . . , , Efforts to 

once, and persevered in lor three years; but recover the 
reasons of English policy prevailed in the end, 
against the hope that the colonists entertained. The 
best they could obtain was a new charter, issued in 
October, 1691, which took away much of the self-govern- 
ment they had enjoyed so long. Their governor and 
other chief officials were to be appointed there- provisions 
after by the king ; their general court was JhaAw, 
restored, but its acts were subject to veto by ■'■®®^' 
the governor or by the crown ; their right of suffrage 
was made to depend on a property qualification, and no 
longer on membership in a church. 



I20 COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT. 

Massachusetts was thus reduced to the status of a 
royal province, but not quite to that of Virginia and 
New York, where the people had no charter to define 
their rights. Territorially the colony was enlarged, by 
Annexation ^^^ annexation to it of Plymouth Colony and 
aidMaSe? Maine. In 1697 it was united once more, for 
1691. ^ time, with New York, under the same gov- 

ernor, Lord Bellomont. Connecticut and Rhode Island, 
whose charters had never been judicially annulled, were 
untouched, and their governments were unchanged. 

53. New York and Jacob Leisler. 1689-1691. In 
New York, after learning of the revolution in England 
and the downfall of Andros at Boston, the deputy-gov- 
ernor, Nicholson, undertook to maintain his authority, 
and did so till the following June, when he was 

Nlcnolson *-* ■' 

deposed. deposed, practically, by the militia trainbands 
of the town, and sailed for England to complain. One 
of the captains of the militia, Jacob Leisler, a wealthy 
German citizen, then took direction of affairs, expecting 
to be justified in what he did. Unfortunately, misled 
Jacob ^y igi^orance and by bitter democratic feel- 

Leisier. ^^^rs ao:ainst an aristocratic class of citizens, 
he pursued a course which placed him fatally in the 
wrong. When, after long delay. King William ap- 
pointed a governor and a deputy-governor, and the latter 
arrived in advance of the former, Leisler was mad 
enough not only to refuse surrender of the fort he held, 
but to fire on the king's troops, of whom the deputy had 
brought a small force. Even after the governor, Colonel 
Sloughter, came (March, 1691), Leisler held out, insist- 
ing on a written order from the king ; but his men sur- 
rendered, and he was seized. A fortnight later, he and 
his son-in-law, Milborne, were tried and condemned for 
firing on the troops. In May they were hanged. The 



THE PERIOD OF STRIFE WITH FRANCE. 121 

fair opinion seems to be that Leisler meant to be a pa- 
triot, but lacked knowledge and judgment for the part 
he undertook, and that his execution was a shameful 
crime. 

Governor Sloughter brought instructions for the elec- 
tion of an Assembly, and the people were represented 
reffularlv in the government of the province 

r 1 • T^ 1 • J ^1^^ Leislerlans 

from that time. For a long period they were and Aristo- 

divided between two factions, *' Leislerians " 

and "Aristocrats," whose bitter quarrels and struggles 

had little to do with the interests of the community at 

large. 

54. New Jersey. 1689-1702. In New Jersey, the 
overthrow of Andros left both provinces with no settled 
government, and with an open question as to whether 
the authority of the proprietors had been restored or 
not. This unsettled state continued until 1702, when 
the proprietors resigned their pretensions to a right of 
government, and the two Jerseys were united in a single 
royal province, with a legislature of its own, but under 
the same governor as New York. 

55. Pennsylvania. 1689-1701. To the proprietor 
of Pennsylvania the change of king in England brought 
trouble for some years. The Stuarts had been friendly 
to him, and he owed them for much favor. Naturally, 
he was regarded with distrust by the new court. There 
was no interference, however, with the gov- pennand 
ernment he had established in Pennsylvania wSfiam, 
until 1693, when Penn's enemies prevailed with 1693-1694. 
King William, and the great Quaker proprietor was 
stripped of political authority in his province, though his 
property rights in it, as a mere estate, were undisturbed. 
For a single year it was made a royal province, under 
the jurisdiction of the governor of New York ; then, in 



122 COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT. 

August, 1694, the king's opinion of Penn seems to have 
changed, and all the powers conferred by his patent were 
restored. 

In 1699 Pennsylvania was visited by its proprietor for 
the last time. He found Philadelphia grown to a city of 
four thousand people, and the whole colony increasing 
and thriving materially, but distracted by dissensions, 
even among the sober-minded Friends, and dissatis- 
fied with the working of the Frame of Government. 
Throughout the two years of his stay he labored for 
an agreement upon amendments, and it was not until 
the eve of his departure, in 1701, that he signed with 
penn'siast reluctance a "Charter of Privileges," as it was 
••^charte?!)! ^^"led, in which he conceded more than he 
Privileges." wished to do, for the sake of peace. This 
charter remained the constitution of the colony until the 
colony became a State. . 

56. Maryland. 1689-1715. Maryland had its own ,; 
revolution, imitating the movement in England, as Mas- ^ 
sachusetts and New York had done. The Protestant » 
inhabitants, who formed a majority of the population, 
rose in insurrection, in July, 1689, deposed the governor, 
and brought about the election of a convention, which 
arranged the government provisionally, while waiting 
for a response to appeals that went to England, both for 
and against the abrogation of proprietary rule. Anti- 
Catholic feeling in England bore too strongly against 
Lord Baltimore to be resisted, and the government of 
Maryland was taken out of his hands by the king in 
1 691. Then, once more, as in 1654 (see sect. 22), the 
tolerance which the Lords Baltimore had up- 
revlveT^*'^ held was swept away. Catholic forms of wor- 

1691 

ship were forbidden, and no further admittance 
of Catholics to the province was allowed. The Church 



THE PERIOD OF STRIFE WITH FRANCE. I23 

of England was established by law, and taxes were levied 
for its support. Until the death, in 171 5, of the Lord 
Baltimore of that period (Charles Calvert), Maryland 
was governed as a royal province ; but the proprietary 
government was restored to his son, Benedict, who had 
withdrawn from the Catholic church, 

57. Virginia and the Carolinas. 1689. Virginia had 
shared very fully the feeling in England against King 
James, and the revolution, being accepted with satisfac- 
tion, caused no change in the course of affairs. Nothing 
occurred in the Carolinas to mark the revolutionary 
event. The two sections of the province, beginning to 
be distinguished commonly as North Carolina and South 
Carolina, were increasing in population very slowly, and 
still struggling through the long disorderly period of 
inefficient proprietary government. 

58. Beginnings of the Conflict with Prance. 1690- 
1713. The revolution in England led to long wars with 
France. The Prince of Orange, who then became king 
of England, was the leading spirit in a great movement 
of combination among European powers to resist the 
aggressions of the French king, Louis XIV. England, 
drawn into that movement, was involved in a succession 
of tremendous conflicts, which became most important 
in the end as a struggle between the English and the 
French for supremacy in the New World. 

The first of these wars, known in Europe as the War 
of the League of Augsburg, but called ** King xingwii- 
William's War " by the colonists, and described "IJo!^"' 
sometimes in American history as the First ^^^^" 
Intercolonial War, was opened on this side of the ocean 
by raids from Canada on the northern settlements of 
the English, in the winter and spring of 1690. Count 
Frontenac, then governor of New France, did not scru- 



124 COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT. 

pie to employ his savage Indian allies in such ruthless 
attacks. One expedition of French and Indians from 
Montreal surprised the outlying settlement at Schenec- 
tady and barbarously massacred some sixty men, women, 
and children, carrying into captivity about thirty more. 
Other expeditions brought the horrors of the tomahawk 
and the scalping knife into New Hampshire and Maine. 

Massachusetts retaliated promptly by a small naval 
expedition, under Sir William Phips, which captured 
Port Royal, in Acadia. While this was in progress, a 
congress of representatives from Massachusetts, Plym- 
Congressat oi^ith, Connecticut, and New York met at New 
New York. York (May, 1690) and planned a combined 
campaign. Two expeditions, against Montreal by land 
and against Quebec by sea, were undertaken accord- 
ingly, and failed lamentably, with great discouragement 
to the colonies, and with consequences of public debt 
and paper-money mischiefs that weighed on them for 
years. In America, the war, throughout, was one of 
savage raids from Canada, retaliated by expeditions that 
had little effect. It was ended by the treaty of Rys- 
wick, in 1697. 

Peace lasted but five years ; then a fresh alliance 
against Louis XIV. was formed. England was joined 
with Holland, Austria, and most of the German states, 
in what is known as the W^ar of the Spanish Succes- 
sion, which raged for twelve years (1702-17 14), in the 
Netherlands, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, America, 
and on the sea. In American history it is called the 
Queen Second Intercolonial War, or '' Queen Anne's 

wS!i702- War," — King William having died at the 
^^^*- beginning of it and being succeeded by the 

Princess Anne, sister to Queen Mary, who had died in 
1694. 



THE PERIOD OF STRIFE WITH FRANCE. 125 



Again the French of Canada led their savage allies 
into Maine and New Hampshire, and down the valley 
of the Connecticut, to do horrible work at Wells, Saco, 
Casco, Deerfield, Lancaster, and other frontier settle- 
ments, in 1703 and 1704. Again there were retaliating 
expeditions which ravaged French settlements on the 
Acadian coast, and which finally, after a failure in 1706, 
captured Port Royal in 1709, and renamed it Annapolis, 
in honor of the queen. Again, too, there were under- 
takings, in 1709 and 171 1, for the conquest of Canada, 
by expeditions in which colonial forces were to cooperate 



Scale OF Miled 




. M / A S * •<a?o.itoi 



L A^ 



PRINCIPAL FIELD OF KING WILLIAM'S AND QUEEN ANNE'S WAR. 

with English fleets and troops ; but they were misman- 
aged and failed. The French had made peace with the 
Five Nations, binding the latter to neutrality, and they 
could not strike the English in the valley of the Hud- 
son without intruding on the Iroquois domain. Hence 
New England had to bear most of the suffering of the 
war. 

In America the conflict was not favorable to the 
English ; but on the European field the English and 



126 COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT. 

Dutch armies, commanded by the Duke of Marlborough, 
won a series of astonishing victories, which broke the 
military prestige of France and humbled its arrogant 
king. He was forced to cede Acadia (named Nova 
Scotia by the English), Newfoundland, and Hudson 
Bay to England, by the treaty of Utrecht, in 
Utrecht, I7n ; af^freeinG^ further that "France should 

1713. / vJ ' & t. 

never molest the Five Nations subject to the 
dominion of Great Britain." But, while they gave way 
to this extent on the seaboard, the French in America 
were steadily widening and strengthening their hold of 
the two great interior valleys ; winning the friendship 
of the Indians of the west, fortifying themselves at De- 
troit, planting colonies and trading stations near the 
mouth of the Mississippi and in the lower valley of the 
Ohio and on the Illinois. In appearance, if not in fact, 
France was binding the better and greater parts of 
North America to the dominion of her king. 

59. Grooving Antagonism between the Colonies 
and the English Grovernment. Experience in these 
conflicts with the French gave painful proof of the disad- 
vantages to England that resulted from the political sepa- 
rateness of the American colonies, and the want of power 
to concentrate their military strength. The overcoming 
of those disadvantages was made difficult by the increas- 
ing disposition of the colonists to resent and resist inter- 
ference with their domestic affairs. It was no longer 
Massachusetts or New England alone that showed a 

jealous sense of independent rio:hts. The revo- 

Locallnde- ^ . . ^ ^ 

pendence lutiou in the mother country had given an 

demanded. . . 

object-lesson to the colonies that was instantly 
learned. By establishing the supremacy of Parliament 
in the government of Englishmen at home, it carried to 
English minds everywhere the conviction that no author- 



THE PERIOD OF STRIFE WITH FRANCE. 12/ 

ity in government which did not represent the governed 
had any rightful claim to obedience^ or respect. 

It was especially becoming a fixed idea in the minds of 
the colonists that taxes ought not to be levied on them 
by any authority save that of their own legislatures. 
By holding the purse strings of government they meant 
to control it, as the whole history of England had been 
teaching them how to do. To provide moneys Taxation 
only from year to year, by annual acts of assem- "listed, 
bly, even for governors' salaries, and thus to keep those 
officials dependent ; to make all appropriations specific, 
for one designated use, and for no other ; to have their 
own colonial treasurers, responsible to their own repre- 
sentatives, — these were now common aims in the colo- 
nies, and they were pursued nowhere more stubbornly 
than in New York. 

On the other hand, the dominant Whigs in England 
were unwilling to apply to the colonies the doctrines of 
representative government which they had established 
in the English constitution. Thus the English on the 
two sides of the Atlantic were becoming op- opposing 
posed in this period, even while they stood cJioniai 
together in fight with France. Both felt the ^^°"- 
need of some unity of government in the colonies, for 
their own defence, and the subject was discussed; but 
colonists and English officials were each determined that 
no kind of union should be formed that might strengthen 
the other. The former would place the bond of union 
in a representative federal assembly ; the latter would 
tighten it in the hands of a vice-royal governor and an 
appointed council. At the same time the several colo- 
nies were held apart by many jealousies and differences, 
and the prospect of a union among them was not at all 
bright. 



128 COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT. 

60. The Board of Trade. — Oppressive "Acts of 
Trade." 1696-1706. In 1696 a special commission was 
established for the joint superintendency of commerce 
and colonial affairs. This Board of Commissioners for 
Trade and Plantations (commonly referred to as the 
Board of Trade or the Lords of Trade) was looked to 
thereafter for information and advice on questions of 
colonial and commercial policy, the two subjects being 
dealt with as one. The Board recommended a num- 
ber of sharp measures which the government did not 
venture to carry out. In 1697 it advised the appoint- 
ment of "a captain-general of all the forces and all the 
militia of all the provinces;" but the appointment was 
not made. In 1701 it proposed an act of Parliament to 
extinguish all charters and reduce the colonies to equal 
"dependency," and a bill to that effect was introduced 
in the House of Lords ; but it did not pass. Nor did an- 
other bill for the same purpose that was brought into the 
House of Commons in 1706, on a report from the Board. 

In matters of trade there was less hesitation to make 
the hard hand of parental control felt. New regula- 
tions for the enforcement of the navigation laws were 
passed in 1696, and in 1699 the determination of Eng- 
land that the colonies should do no important manufac- 
turing for themselves was embodied in an act declaring 
••Protec- ^h^t» " ^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ "^^^y °^ December, 1699, no 
English wool, or manufacture made or mixed with wool, 
Industries, i^^jng the produce or manufacture of any of the 
English plantations in America, shall be loaden in any 
ship or vessel, upon any pretence whatsoever — nor 
ioaden upon any horse, cart, or other carriage — to be 
carried out of the English plantations to any other of 
the said plantations, or to any other place whatsoever."^ 
1 Bancroft, Hist, of the U. S. (author's last revision), ii. 81. 



THE PERIOD OF STRIFE WITH FRANCE. 129 

61. The Witchcraft Madness in Salem. 1692. In 
1692 an affliction worse than oppressive government 
came upon Massachusetts, in an epidemic of frenzy on 
the subject of witchcraft, which seized the people of an 
important town. The superstitious beUef that men and 
women might obtain a supernatural power to do harm 
to others, by wickedly selling their souls to Satan, was 
common everywhere in that age of the world. In all 

[countries there were cruel laws against the supposed 
crime of witchcraft, and many supposed witches had 
been put to death ; but never elsewhere does there seem 
to have been such madness on the subject as that which 
made Salem the scene of horrible tragedies in 1692. 
Between July and September in that year nine innocent 
men and women were hanged ; one old man was pressed 
to death ; eight more who were condemned to die, and 
about a hundred and fifty who waited trial, were in 
prison when the season of madness passed. 

62. Huguenot and German Immigration. Several 
colonies were now receiving an increased immigration, 
and from excellent classes of people, especially out of 
Germany and France. The German immigrants, mostly 
refugees from the country called the Palatinate, on the 
Rhine, which had been devastated barbarously by armies 
of Louis XIV., were settled in North Carolina, Virginia, 
Pennsylvania, and New York. Persecution of Protes- 
tants (Huguenots) in France had been driving great 
numbers from that country, and many found homes in 
America, South Carolina and New York receiving the 
larger share. 

63. The Carolinas. 1690-1713. South Carolina 
was now entering on a more prosperous career, founded 
mainly on the cultivation of rice, and negro slavery was 
having a proportionate growth. Charleston was rising 



130 COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT. 

to importance as a seat of trade, and a centre of wealth 
and culture. 

In North Carolina much disorder still prevailed. The 
colony was afflicted with a serious Indian war, in 171 1-13, 
begun by a horrible massacre of frontier settlers in Sep- 
tember of the former year. The Iroquois tribe of Tus- 
.pjjg caroras, which led in this attack, was driven 

Tuscaroras. finally from the country, and migrated to New 
York, where it was received into the Iroquois confed- 
eracy, making that a feague of '* Six Nations," instead of 
Five. 

64. Incidents of Progress. 1701-1710. A notable 

event in Connecticut, within this period, was 
College, the founding at New Haven, in 1701, of the col- 

leire which received somewhat later the name 
of its principal early patron, Elihu Yale. No less notable 
was the appearance at Boston, on the 24th of April, 

Thelirst ^7^4^ ^^ ^^e *' NcwS-Lettcr," the first news- 
newspaper, paper printed in the New World. 

In 1692 a postmaster for the northern colonies had 
been appointed by the king, but there seems to have 
been little that he found it possible to do. In 17 10, 
Beginning howcver, an act of Parliament provided regula- 
Syst?m?^^ tions for a postal system, which was gradually 
1692-1710. developed from that time ; though some colo- 
nists were anxious lest a precedent for parliamentary 
taxation should hide itself in the postage rate. 

65. The Hanoverian Kings. — Ministry of Sir Rob- 
ert Walpole. 1714-1742. Queen Anne died in 1714, 
leaving no direct heir. A son of James II., styled "the 
Pretender," because he claimed to be the rightful king 
of England, was exiled in P'rance, and excluded from the 
succession by an act of Parliament, which gave the crown 
to a German prince, George, Elector of Hanover and 



THE PERIOD OF STRIFE WITH FRANCE. 131 

Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg, whose grandmother was 
the daughter of James I. This brought to England the 
family of sovereigns sometimes called Hanoverian, some- 
times referred to as ''the House of Brunswick," which 
still holds the throne. The English had no liking for 
their foreign king, who could not even speak their lan- 
guage, and a strong Tory party favored the Pretender's 
claims. Hence King George I. and the Whigs who 
sustained him held the government by a tenure that was 
insecure for many years. They were in no position to 
have trouble with the colonics, nor war with foreign 
powers, and the wise minister, Sir Robert Walpole, who 
conducted the government, avoided both. For sir Robert 
a quarter of a century he kept England at ^^^5°^®- 
peace, and generally in a state of prosperous content. 

66. British Officials in the Colonies. In his political 
treatment of the colonies, Walpole refused to be guided 
by the Board of Trade. The Board took its opinions for 
the most part from the royal governors in America, who 
were not often men of character or ability, and who, 
having many quarrels with the colonial assemblies, re- 
presented to their superiors that the people of the plan- 
tations had no aim but to break themselves free from 
all British ties. It is abundantly proved that this was 
not then, nor long afterward, the fact. With increasing 
resoluteness, the English in America were claiming all 
the rights which the English in Great Britain enjoyed ; 
especially the right of self-taxation, the right to control 
the expenditure of their own public moneys, and the 
right to a free press ; but they claimed those rights as 
members of the British Empire, — as subjects of the 
British crown, — and there is no sign of a wish on their 
part, in those days, to be anything else. 

67. The Question of Taxation. In one particular, at 



132 COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT. 

least, the colonists weakened very seriously the ground 
on which they denied the right of the British Parliament 
to lay taxes upon them. They would not tax themselves 
for what seems to have been a reasonable share of the 
burdens of the war with France, nor, after the war, for 
a reasonable share of the cost of fortifying and garrison- 
ing their own frontiers. It was this which gave to the 
royal governors and the Board of Trade their strong- 
est argument when they appealed to Parliament to annul 
all charters, unite the colonies under a common gov- 
ernment, and impose upon them a direct imperial tax. 

They might have persuaded Parliament to act 
taxing the on their advice, but Sir Robert Walpole, who 

controlled it, was not to be moved. " I will 
leave the taxing of the British colonies," he is reported 
to have said, " to some of my successors, who may have 
more courage than I have, and be less a friend to com- 
merce than I am." So those follies of arbitrary gov- 
ernment were put off by Walpole's good sense until he 
lost control of Parliament, which happened in 1739; 
and then they were postponed still further by war with 
Spain and new wars with France, into which England 
was pushed. 

68. Industrial and ComrQercial Oppressions. But, 
while Walpole refused to adopt the colonial policy urged 
by the Board of Trade in political matters, he accepted 
its commercial ideas, and satisfied the increasing demand 
of English merchants and manufacturers for measures 
to suppress colonial industries that seemed hurtful to 
British trade.^ These intolerable measures were evaded 
to a large extent. 

1 " Every form of competition by colonial industry was discour- 
aged or forbidden. It was found that hats were well made in the 
land of furs ; the London company of hatters remonstrated, and 



THE PERIOD OF STRIFE WITH FRANCE. 133 

69. The Carolinas. 1719-1729. The wretched gov- 
ernment in South Carolma which the proprietors main- 
tained was overthrown in 17 19, when the colonial As- 
sembly refused to recognize the proprietary officials any 
longer, and seated a governor of its own choice. The 
revolutionary proceeding was winked at in England, 
where the proprietors were thought to have forfeited 
their charter by neglect and misuse, and a royal gov- 
ernor was sent out. Ten years later (1729) the proprie- 
tary rights were purchased by the crown, and both 
Carolinas then came under the direct rule of the king. 

70. The Pounding of Georgia. 1732-1752. In 1732 
the last of the thirteen colonies which originally formed 
the United States of America was founded, as an enter- 
prise of noble benevolence, by General James Ogle- 
thorpe. General Oglethorpe was moved by a deep feel- 
ing of pity for those unfortunate people who, general 

in that age, suffered imprisonment for trifling Oglethorpe, 
debts. As a means of opening some hopeful future to 
them, and to others in need, he procured a charter from 
the king, creating a province named Georgia, to em- 

their craft was protected by an act forbidding hats to be trans- 
ported from one plantation to another. . . . English iron-mongers 
asked for a total prohibition of forges, and the English landlords 
of furnaces for preparing the rough material, because the fires in 
America diminished the value' of British woodlands. In the con- 
flict the subject was postponed. . . . In the seventh year of George 
I. the importation of East Indian goods into the colonies was pro- 
hibited, except from Great Britain. . . . Furs from the plantations 
were enumerated among the commodities which could be exported 
only to Great Britain; so, too, ore from the abundant copper mines 
of America. The reservation of the pine-trees of the north for the 
British navy was continued. . . . For colonists to manufacture like 
Englishmen was esteemed an audacity, to be rebuked and restrained 
by every device of law." Bancroft, Hist, of the U. S. (author's 
last revision), ii. 239-243. 



134 COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT. 

brace the country that adjoins the Carolinas, between 
the Savannah and the Altamaha rivers, and from the 
sources of those streams due west to the Pacific. For 
twenty-one years it was to be placed under the guardian- 
ship of a corporation, "in trust for the poor." This 
was in territory claimed by Spain ; but the English were 
resolved to make it their own. The first company of 
emigrants, led by Oglethorpe in person, sailed from Eng- 
land in November, 1732, and planted its settlement at 
Savannah early in the following year. 

The province was to have no representative govern- 
ment until the twenty-one years of trusteeship were 
ended ; meantime it was to have no slaves, and no in- 
toxicating liquors were to be sold within its bounds ; 
but slavery is said to have made its appearance within 
seven years, and rum, probably, was not behind. The 
government by trustees was abandoned, and Georgia 
became a royal or crown colony, with a representative 
Assembly, in 1752. 

71. English Neglect of the Western Country. 1609- 
1716. The long neglect of the English in America 
even to explore the great expanse of continent beyond 
their narrow fringe of colonies on the coast seems very 
strange. Some traders had made their way across the 
mountains into parts of the western wilderness ; but no 
exploration like that of the French, and no attempt to 
lay hold of the country, by posts, missions, or stations 
of any kind, had been made. The great valley to the 
west of them, which stretched its wide arms to the foot 
of the Appalachian hills, was little better known to the 
English who claimed it, in the first quarter of the eigh- 
teenth century, than it had been to the first colonists, 
a hundred years before. It was not until 1716 that an 
enterprising governor of Virginia, Alexander Spotswood, 



THE PERIOD OF STRIFE WITH FRANCE. 135 

led a gay party of cavaliers across the Blue Ridge into 
the beautifid valley of the Shenandoah, and g^^^^, 
learned what a garden of paradise was there. JiJJatfonf" 
Of the vast region beyond the further Alle- ^'^^^' 
ghanies he had so little notion that he supposed, from 
something the Indians told him, that Lake Erie might 
be seen from one of the latter peaks. But he did be- 
come impressed with a sense of the need of vigorous 
action to hold, at least, the mountain passes, against the 
French, and urged the British government to take steps 
to that end. 

Others of the royal governors had begun to realize 
the seriousness of the situation which French activity 
in the west was bringing about ; but the English gov- 
ernment and the colonial assemblies were strangely in- 
different still. A single measure, considerably at his 
own expense, was taken by Governor Burnet, of New 
York, in 1726, when he bought land at Oswego, from 
the Six Nations, and established there, first a 
trading-post, and then a small stone-walled fort, oswego, 
But that English foothold on Lake Ontario 
was a trifling thing compared with the forts and garri- 
sons at Niagara and at Crown Point which the French 
added soon afterward to their chain of strong posts. 

72. The Scotch-Irish in the Appalachian Valleys. 
1704-1750. Something vastly more important, how- 
ever, for the strengthening of the British colonies, than 
the mere building of forts, was being done at this time 
in Pennsylvania, with little consciousness of the effect. 
The large immigration to Penn's province had now 
pushed its settlements to the mountains, and a great 
stream which began to pour into the country from the 
north of Ireland flowed naturally into the valleys that 
He between the parallel ridges of the Appalachian sys- 



13^ COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT. 

tem, stretching away to the southwest. It was a mi- 
gration of people whose home had been in the Irish 

province of Ulster for two or three generations, 
the Scotch- but whose ancestry was Scotch. Oppressed 

on all sides, by the state, by the church, and 
by their landlords, these Scotch-Irish, as they are known, 
were drawn toward America by good reports of the free- 
dom and prosperity enjoyed there, especially in the 
famous Quaker's lands. By many thousands every year, 

throuo:h all the half-century that preceded the 
tionto American Revolution, they were coming in a 

scarcely broken stream, until half a million of 
this strong, intelligent population is believed to have 
been transferred to America, and settled mostly on the 
colonial frontier. A few went into other colonies, but 
the great majority sought the mountain region of Penn- 
sylvania, filling it and pressing along its valleys into 
western Virginia and the highlands of the Carolinas, 
whence it overflowed, a little later, into Kentucky and 
Tennessee. The Scotch-Irish were not alone in that 
southwestward movement through the Appalachian val- 
leys, for German and other immigrants were taking the 
same course ; but the strength and character then given 
to the frontier settlement of the colonies came from the 
first-mentioned stock. 

73. Death of William Penn. Pennsylvania was hav- 
ing a remarkably prosperous growth ; yet in some re- 
spects it had disappointed Penn's hopes. It had caused 
him many troubles, and had cost him more than it 
yielded in return. In 171 2 he proposed to relinquish 
his powers of government to the crown for ;£ 12,000, 
but was stricken with paralysis in the midst of the ne- 
gotiation, and never recovered from the stroke, though 
he lingered in life for six years. The proprietorship of 



THE PERIOD OF STRIFE WITH FRANCE. 137 

the province passed at his death (1718) to three of his 
sons. 

74. Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia. It was soon 
after that time (in 1723) that Benjamin Franklin ran 
away from an irksome apprenticeship to his brother in 
Boston, and came, a penniless lad of seventeen, to begin 
his great career in Philadelphia, and to plant in that city 
many fertile ideas that have borne important fruits. He 
was the first of the grand characters of the coming Revo- 
lution to appear on the stage of action. When Franklin 
began typesetting in Philadelphia, neither Washington 
nor Jefferson nor John Adams was born, and Samuel 
Adams was an infant in arms. 

75. Rise of the Newspaper Press. — The Winning 
of its Freedom. Before Franklin left Boston he had 
experience in that city of the want of freedom for the 
press. His brother, who published one of the three 
newspapers in Boston, had lately been imprisoned for a 
month, by order of the Assembly, on account of some 
article that gave offence. There were no other news- 
papers in America at the time, except one in Philadel- 
phia, which a son of the early printer, Bradford, had 
founded in 1719. In 1725 one appeared in New York, 
and after that time they were multiplied, in Maryland, 
South Carolina, Rhode Island, and Virginia. A second 
newspaper started in New York by one Zenger, in 1733, 
gave rise, in the next year, to a famous trial, which 
resulted in a decisive vindication of the right of pub- 
lishers to print true statements of fact concerning public 
affairs. 

76. Third Intercolonial War. 1739-1748. In 1739 
Walpole was overcome by his political oppo- 
nents in the English government, and the na- Spain, 
tion was carried, against his will, into a war 



138 



COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT. 



with Spain. The colonies took little part in this war, 
except in Georgia, on the border of Spanish territory, 
where some fighting occurred. 

In 174^ the hostilities between England and Spain 
became part of a great general war, in which most of 
the European powers were engaged, with England, Hol- 
land, and Austria on one side, against France, Spain, 
Prussia, and several minor states, on the other. To 
"King England, this War of the Austrian Succession, 
war5'^'^ as it is known (called '* King George's War," 
1743-1748. Qj. ^YiQ Third Intercolonial War, in American 
history), brought neither glory nor gain. The one not- 
able exploit in it 
was performed 
by the New Eng- 
landers, as an 
undertaking of 
their own, with 
no help but that 
given by a British 
fleet, which block- 
aded the harbor 
of Louisbourg, 
in the island of 
Cape Breton, 
while they re- 
duced the power- 
ful defences of 
the place. For a score of years, at enormous cost, the 
French had been fortifying that harbor for a naval sta- 
tion, and it was their stronghold on the coast. 
Louisbourg, Massachusetts was the leader in the expedition 
against it, and furnished about three fourths 
of the troops and equipments sent. The 4000 men of 







LOUISBOURG THE KEY TO THE GULF OF ST. 
LAWRENCE. 



THE PERIOD OF STRIFE WITH FRANCE. 139 

this small colonial army had no training, their officers 
had no military experience, their commander, William 
Pepperell, a wealthy merchant, was entirely new to the 
business of war, but they took Louisbourg (June, 1745), 
after a siege of six weeks. 

The Assembly of New York, having a quarrel with its 
governor, George Clinton, would provide no means for 
expelling the French from Crown Point, nor for fortify- 
ing against them, even to defend a settlement at Sara- 
toga, which was left to be raided and destroyed, with a 
sacrifice of thirty lives. The border settlements in New 
England were protected with more vigor and success, 
against repeated attacks. 

77. French and English in the Upper Ohio Valley. 
1748-1753. The war settled nothing between England 
and France. Peace was made in 1748 (Treaty of Aix- 
la-Chapelle) by each giving back what it had taken from 
the other ; and every discerning person could see that 
the open question of boundaries between French and 
English territory in America, which the treaty left un- 
touched, was sure to be the cause of another war in no 
long time. Hitherto that question had been a pressing 
one only on the northeastern border of the English settle- 
ments and claims ; but now the two peoples 

^1 .. 4.U ^ -ru Beyond the 

were comms: to close quarters on the west. 1 he mountains, 

r.T-1-r 1, 1, 1748-1750. 

tirst English settlement beyond the mountains 
in western Virginia was made on a branch of the Kanawha 
in 1748 ; and a company in that year obtained a crown 
grant of half a million acres, to be located somewhere in 
the Ohio valley. Two years later this Ohio Company 
sent one Christopher Gist, with a party, to make the first 
known English exploration of the country bordering on 
the upper waters of the Ohio. Many traders with the 
Indians, from Pennsylvania and the southern colonies, 



I40 COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT. 

were now in that country, and settlers were making 
ready to follow in their track. 

At the same time the French, already well established 
along the line of the Great Lakes, and in the country 
between the western end of Lake Erie, Lake Michigan, 
and the lower Ohio, were entering the upper valley of 
the Ohio from points near the eastern end of Lake 
Erie, and were formally taking possession of that region 
in the name of their king. This was done by 
western an explorins: expedition under Celoron de Bien- 

Pennsyl- ^ ^ ^^ , . i • • 

vania, ville in I74Q. Early m 1753 more decisive 

1749-1753. ' ^-^ ^ 

action was taken, by a French force which 
came across Lake Erie to Presque Isle (now the city of 
Erie), and thence to French Creek, on which stream 
two forts, Le Boeuf and Venango, were built and gar- 
risoned, for the purpose of holding an easy line of 
communication between the Alleghany River and the 
lake. 

78. Opening of the Final Conflict with the French. 
1753-1754. It was then, and because of that action 
of the French, that George Washington made his first 
appearance in history. Virginians, it will be remem- 
bered, claimed a northern boundary line, under the char- 
ter of 1609, which ran northwestwardly, instead of due 
west (see sect. 3), taking in the territory on which the 
French were now laying hands. That claim had been 
strengthened in 1744 by a treaty, signed at Lancaster, 
which Virginia joined Maryland and Pennsylvania in 
making with the Iroquois, whereby the latter conveyed 
all rights belonging to them as conquerors of the tribes 
of the west. On these grounds, when news of the build- 
ing of the forts on French Creek was received. Governor 
Dinwiddle of Virginia made haste to send a warning to 
the officer in command that he had intruded on English 



THE PERIOD OF STRIFE WITH FRANCE. 141 



soil. The message was conveyed (1753) through the 
wilderness by George Washington, then lately appointed 
major and adiutant-o^eneral of the militia _ 

■' 1 Washing- 

forces of Virginia, though but twenty-one years ton's 

of ao:e. Of course, the French officer at Fort intoHis- 

^ . tory, 1753. 

Le Boeuf declined to vacate his post ; and a 
working party was then sent out from Virginia, in the 




FRENCH POSTS IN THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI VALLEY AND AROUND THE 

GREAT LAKES. 

spring of 1754, to build an opposing fort, at the junction 
of the Alleghany and the Monongahela, where Pittsburg 
now stands, while Washington followed, soon after, with 
two hundred men. Before the latter could reach the 
ground the English fort-builders were driven off, and the 
French were continuing the work they had begun. 



14- COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT. 

Washington, moving fonvard, came by surprise on a 
French scouting party and attacked it, killing ten and 
taking twenty-one prisoners. This opened the final con- 
flict which decided that Englishmen and not Frenchmen 
should be masters of the destiny of the American world. 
Falling back to Great Meadows, and being slightly re- 
inforced, Washine^ton built a small fort, which 

Great . 

Meadows, he called Fort Necessity, and endeavored to 

1754. 

hold his ground against a thousand French and 
Indians ; but his small force was too poorly provisioned 
and equipped to stand a siege, and he had to accept 
terms which allowed him to lead his men back to their 
homes. 

79. Indifference of Many Colonies to the French 
Advance. England was now aroused, and began, for 
the first time, to make serious preparations for fighting 
out her colonial quarrels with France. But except in 
New Ens:land, whose border settlements had been 
harassed sorely by the French, the colonists still looked 
with much indifference, it would seem, at the move- 
ments of the rival people who were hemming them in. 
In New York the Assembly coolly answered the gov- 
ernor's appeal for means to repel the French invasion 
Attitude of ^y saying that the building of a fort, *' at a place 
New York. Q^^jjed French Creek, at a considerable dis- 
tance from the river Ohio,'" *'does not by any e\-idence 
or information appear to us to be an invasion of any of 
his majesty's colonies : " and it was with great reluctance 
that this sceptical body finally voted £10,000. In Penn- 
svlvania, where the large Quaker element of population 
had always refused to vote money for military use, and 
where the people in general were refusing to le\*y any tax 
which did not apply to the wild lands of the proprietors, 
the answer of the Assembly was much the same. They 



THE PERIOD OF STRIFE WITH FRANCE. 143 

said plainly to the governor that " they had rather the 
French should conquer than give up their privileges." 
New Jersey did nothing. Maryland made a tardy appro- 
priation of ^6000. Even in Virginia, which claimed 
the invaded territory, the Assembly appeared more 
anxious to defeat the governor in an old matter of quar- 
rel than to* drive out the French. 

Looking back from our own time at the situation as 
it existed then, one can see that England could have 
afforded much better than the colonies could to let the 
French win the lakes and the great rivers and 
valleys of the west. If the English govern- o?aiter ^ 
ment could have foreseen that the overthrow 
of its own authority in the colonies would follow the 
expulsion of France from America, it might reasonably 
have stood back, to let events take their course. There 
wc?r sagacious men, both in England and in the colo- 
nies, who suspected that nothing save the presence of 
the French on their borders could keep the colonists in 
subjection ; but the contrary view prevailed. England 
became eager for the conquest of New France, and so 
cleared the way to independence for the colonies ; while 
the colonies themselves were mostly cool toward the 
undertaking at first, and discouraged the very effort by 
which their speedy emancipation was guaranteed. 

80. Plans of Colonial Union. 1754. In view of all 
the circumstances, it can hardly be wondered that the 
British government entered the war with an intention 
to tax the colonies by act of Parliament for their share 
of its cost. That intention appeared in action taken 
after the meeting of a congress of colonial commission- 
ers, called by order of the Lords of Trade and held at 
Albany, in June, 1754. New York, Pennsylvania, Mary- 
land, and the four New England colonies were repre- 



144 COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT. 

sented by some of their ablest men ; but the provinces 

farther south took no part. The special purpose of the 

congress was to strengthen the English alliance with 

the Six Nations, who were being seduced by the French ; 

but the congress took up the subject of a colonial union, 

and several plans of organization were discussed. One, 

submitted by Benjamin Franklin, was adopted, 
Franklin's ■' ^ . 

plan of after some amendments, and recommended to 
union. 

the provincial assemblies and the Board of 
Trade. It contemplated a general government, to be 
administered by a president-general, appointed by the 
crown, and a grand council, to be chosen by the several 
colonial assemblies. The result of the recommenda- 
tion is thus related by Franklin, in his own account of 
his life : *' The assemblies did not adopt it [the recom- 
mended plan], as they all thought there was too much 
prerogative in it, and in England it was judged to have 
too much of the democratic. The Board of Trade there- 
fore did not approve it, nor recommend it for the appro- 
bation of his majesty ; but another scheme was formed, 
supposed to answer the same purpose better, whereby 
the governors of the provinces, with some members of 
their respective councils, were to meet and order the 
raising of troops, building of forts, etc., and to draw on the 
treasury of Great Britain for the expense, which was after- 
ward to be refunded by an act of Parliament, laying a tax 
on America." So England entered the final contest for 
empire in America with intentions that were destined 
to cost her the best part of the fruits of her success. 

81. Braddock's Defeat. 1755. Neither England nor 
France had declared war ; but both proceeded to hostili- 
ties, and were fighting battles at sea and on land for two 
years before they gave up the pretence of being at peace. 
Early in 1755, both sent considerable forces to America, 



THE PERIOD OF STRIFE WITH FRANCE. 145 



the English under General Braddock, the French under 
Baron Dieskau. General Braddock and his regiments 
were landed in Virginia, and there, at a conference with 
several of the provincial governors, four simultaneous 
attacks on the French were planned ; one, to be led by 
Braddock in person, against the new fort (on the site 
of Pittsburg), which had been completed and ^^^^ 
called Fort Duquesne ; a second against Crown ^^^^^sne. 
Point, under Colonel William Johnson, Superintendent 
of Indian Affairs 
in New York, and 
powerful in in- 
fluence with the 
Six Nations ; a 
third against 
Fort Niagara, 
which Governor 
Shirley, of Mas- 
sachusetts, would 
command; the 
fourth in Acadia, 
to clear the 
French from the 
forts they held 
on the northern 
side of the Bay 
of Fundy and 
Chignecto Bay. 

Some compa- 
nies of Virginians 

were added to Braddock's British regiments, and Wash- 
ington was invited to join his staff. But the British 

1 From Miles's History of Canada^ reproduced in Winsor's 
A?nerica, v. 557. 




MILITARY POSTS IN THE FRONTIER REGIONS OF 
NORTHEASTERN NEW YORK AND NEIGHBORING 
CANADA.l 



146 COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT. 

general, who knew nothing of war with savages in the 
wilderness, was scornful of information from those who 
The day oi ^^^^^ know, and a terrible disaster was the re- 
juf/s"' suit. Attacked in the forest, when near Fort 
1755. Duquesne, by hidden foes, who fired from be- 

hind trees, he would not let his men fight in the same 
backwoods fashion, but compelled them to stand in 
line, exposed to the fire of the hidden enemy, until they 
broke and fled in wild disorder, leaving their wounded 
to be tomahawked and scalped. Out of a total of about 
2200 in Braddock's command, nearly 800 are believed 
to have been lost. Braddock himself was mortally 
wounded and died during the retreat. His second in 
command abandoned the whole frontier, leaving it at 
the mercy of the savages, who swarmed against it for 
months, at the instigation of the French. 

Governor Shirley's expedition against Fort Niagara 
got no farther than Oswego, finding the forces of the 
enemy unexpectedly strong. The army led by Colonel 
other Johnson was attacked while in camp at the 

expeditions, i^g^d of Lake George, and won an important 
victory, shattering the French army, wounding Baron 
Dieskau, and taking him prisoner ; but it did not ad- 
vance to Crown Point. Johnson contented himself with 
building an opposing fort, named William Henry, at the 
head of Lake George, and another at the head of boat 
navisration on the Hudson, called Fort Edward; while 
the French built Fort Carillon, afterward called Fort 
Ticonderoga, at the outlet of Lake George into Lake 
Champlain. 

82. Dispersion of the Acadian French. 1755. Of 
the four movements planned for 1755, only one had 
complete success. That in Acadia drove the French 
entirely from the Bay of Fundy and the neighborhood 



THE PERIOD OF STRIFE WITH FRANCE. 1 4/ 

of Chignccto Bay, where they had been keeping up con- 
tinual intrigues among the Acadian PVench of the Nova 
Scotian peninsula, inciting them to hostile acts. As 
the Acadians continued to give trouble, and refused to 
swear allegiance, a resolution to remove them and scat- 
ter them in other colonies was taken, and that harsh 
measure was carried out in the fall of 1755. About 
6000 were forcibly shipped to different points in the 
English colonies, whence many of them made j^ 
their way to the French settlements in Louisi- ??Evange- 
ana ; some escaped to Canada ; a few were left "^®-" 
behind. The sad tale is told, but not with historical 
accuracy, in Longfellow's poem of ** Evangeline." 

83. The European " Seven Years' War." In May, 
1756, war between England and France was formally 
declared. Both nations had then become engaged on 
opposite sides of another great European quarrel. 
France had joined Austria, Russia, Sweden, and other 
powers, in a combined attempt to crush the king of 
Prussia, Frederick the Great. England went into alli- 
ance with Frederick, in order to have his help in defend- 
ing the German dominion (Hanover) of King George. 
The far-reaching and tremendous conflict then opened 
is described in European history as the Seven Years' 
War ; but the colonists called their part of it, as well as 
the American hostilities that preceded it, the French and 
Indian War. 

84. The Turning of the Tide. 1756-1758. For the 
campaign of 1756, in America, the PVench government 
sent out an excellent soldier, the Marquis de Montcalm, 
to take command, while a dilatory general. Lord Lou- 
don, was opposed to him on the British side. Things 
went badly with the British for the next two years. 
Oswego and Fort William Henry were lost, and the 



148 COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT. 

whole border, from New York to Virginia, was harried 
William ^y Fi'ench and Indian raids. So far, the arms 
eide/^* of France were triumphant, and the outlook for 
1758. ^YiQ English in America was very dark. But 

suddenly, in the summer of 1758, an amazing change 
occurred. A great British statesman, the elder Wil- 
liam Pitt (afterward the Earl of Chatham), had risen to 
power, and his prodigious energy was imparted to the 
conduct of the war. 

The successes of 1758 in America (from which Lord 
Loudon was recalled) were the reduction, again, of 
Louisbourg, after a siege of seven weeks, the expulsion 
of the French from Fort Duquesne, and the capture and 
destruction of Fort Frontenac, on the Canadian shore 
of Lake Ontario, where the city of Kingston stands 
now. One dreadful disaster marked the year. A force 
of 6000 British regulars and 9000 provincial troops was 
Repulse at ^ent against Ticonderoga and Crown Point. It 
oga?Juiy ^^^s nominally commanded by Major-general 
8,1758. Abercrombie, but really by Lord Howe, who 
was a man after Pitt's own kind. Unhappily, Lord 
Howe was killed in a chance encounter with the enemy, 
before reaching Ticonderoga, and an ill-judged assault 
on the fort, directed by Abercrombie, was repulsed with 
such terrible slaughter that he made no further attempt. 

85. Conquest of New France. 1759-1760. The 
supreme and decisive achievement of the war came 
in the next year (17^9), when Quebec, supposed to be 
the invincible citadel of Canada, was taken by General 
Wolfe. The British fleet and army reached Quebec at 
the end of June, and found the French, under Montcalm, 
prepared to defend it with nearly double the force that 
Wolfe had been able to bring. More than ten weeks 
were spent in attempts to find some way of reaching the 



THE PERIOD OF STRIFE WITH FRANCE. I49 

enemy on the heights that they held. At last the way 
was found, between midnight and dawn of the 13th of 
September, when 4800 of the besieging troops climbed 
to the summit without discovery, and defeated capture oi 
the rawer levies of Montcalm in an open battle ^epSuer 
fought on a broad plateau, known as " the ^^' ^'^^^■ 
Plains of Abraham." Both Wolfe and Montcalm re- 




^ ■*//, IRTISH^ .'^fBE^CH IV 



oREoi: •* 


^^ 


fr{-As^ 


ADMIRAL -^ . 

"Launders s 

J, i P<''J OrUa 





^o^. 



■■?&< 




PLAN OF THE SIEGE OF QUEBEC. 1 

ceived mortal wounds in the fight. The former died 
on the field, in the moment that he knew it to be won ; 
the latter expired the next day. 

Before this most fatal of all possible blows to the power 
of France in America had been struck, and while Wolfe 
was still sparring with his antagonist for the chance to de- 
liver it, General Amherst (who had been in command at 
the taking of Louisbourg, in the previous year) led i i,ooo 

^ From Miles's History of Canada, reproduced in Winsor's 
America, v. 542. 



ISO COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT. 

men against forts Ticonderoga and Crown Point, and 

forced the French to abandon both. Fort 

French Niagara, at the point where the river Niagara 

reverses. ^ . x i ^ • i i i i ^ 

flows into Lake Ontario, had been surrendered to 
an expedition sent against it in July, and this compelled 
a quick retreat of garrisons from Venango, Le Boeuf, and 
Presque Isle. All the French posts farther west were 
cut off. A hopeless fight was kept up in other quarters 
until September of the following year (1760), when 
the surrender of Montreal carried with it the surrender 
throughout Canada of all the French forces in arms. 

86. Cession of all French Territory in North Amer- 
ica. 1763. In Europe, the great Seven Years' War went 
on for two more years, and terms of peace were not 
finally settled until February, 1763, when the treaty of 
Paris was signed. By that treaty France ceded to Great 
Britain the whole vast territory that she had claimed 
in North America east of the Mississippi River, except- 
ing the settlement at New Orleans, and two small islands 
near the coast of Newfoundland, which she kept for fish- 
ing stations, with certain fishery rights. New Orleans 
and the region claimed by France on the western side 
France ^^ ^^^ Mississippi, which she called Louisiana, 
Louisiana were given up to Spain. Spain at the same time 
spa?nceies Ceded Florida to Great Britain, whose sover- 
fo^Engtand. eignty in America became then complete from 
^^^^' the Atlantic to the Mississippi, and from the 

Gulf of Mexico to the Polar Sea, excepting in the little 
district where the city of New Orleans was growing up. 

In the war which had that great result, the colonies, 
notwithstanding their backwardness at the beginning, 
appear to have borne their full share of the fighting 
and the cost. In testimony given three years after the 
peace, before the House of Commons, Dr. Franklin said : 



THE PERIOD OF STRIFE WITH FRANCE. 151 

"The colonies raised, paid and clothed near 25,000 men 

during the last war, a number equal to those 

sent from Britain, and far beyond their pro- the colonies 

portion ; they went deeply into debt in doing 

this, and all their taxes and estates are mortgaged, for 

many years to come, for discharging this debt." 

87. Pontiac's War. 1763-1764. In assuming that 
France could transfer to them a sufficient title to the 
great territory she had claimed, the English were forget- 
ful of the native occupants, by whose friendly sufferance 
the French had been holding all that they called their 
rights. English garrisons took the place of the French 
throughout the west, with little effort to win the assent 
of the surrounding tribes. The natural consequence 
was a fierce and widespread resentment among cause of 
the savages, leading to a great combination of hostilities, 
tribes, secretly worked up with rare ability by Pontiac, 
an Ottawa chief. Nearly the whole of the Algonquian 
stock, together with the Hurons or Wyandots, the Sen- 
ecas, and some tribes of the lower Mississippi, were 
brought into the plan of a simultaneous attack on all the 
western English posts. The attacks were made in May 
and June, 1763, with appalling success almost every- 
where except at Detroit and at Fort Pitt. The garrison 
at Detroit was besieged by Pontiac in person 
for six months, and held out until relieved. Fort Detroit, 

1763 

Pitt was relieved more promptly, by Colonel 
Henry Bouquet, whose energy and capability were con- 
spicuously shown in this Indian war, which lasted until 
near the end of 1764. Pontiac's combination was finally 
broken up, and peace was made by Sir William Johnson 
with nearly all the tribes. But Pontiac himself retreated 
to the neighborhood of the Mississippi, where he was 
assassinated in 1769. 



152 COLONIAL DEVELOPiMENT. 



TOPICS AND SUGGESTED READING AND RESEARCH. 

52. Overthrow of Andros. — A New Charter for 

Massachusetts, 

Topics and References. 

I. Andros deposed in Massachusetts. 2. The new charter 
(text in MacDonald, i. 205-212). 3. Government as a royal pro- 
vince, and annexation of Plymouth and Maine. 4. Connecticut 
and Rhode Island. Hutchinson, i. 372-387; Doyle, iii. 339-358, 
372-383; Fiske, Beginnings, 271-278; Fisher, 218-225. 

63. New York and Jacob Leisler. 

Topics and References. 

I. The Revolution in New York. 2. Authority assumed by 
Jacob Leisler. 3. Leisler deposed and executed. 4. " Leisleri- 
ans" and "Aristocrats." Winsor, America, v. 189-194; Roose- 
velt, A'ew York, ch. vi. ; Fiske, D. and Q. CoPs, ii. 181-208, 212- 
215 ; Frothingham, Rise of the Rep., 83-85, ^Z, 93-95 ; Fisher, 241- 
247. 

54. New Jersey. 

Topics and References. 

I. Union of the two Jerseys in a single royal province. Fiske, 
D. and Q. CoPs, ii. 239-240 ; Fisher, 255-256 ; Hart, Co7itemp's, 
ii. 68-72. 

^^. Pennsylvania. 

Topics and References. 

I. Penn's troubles in England. 2. Suspension and restoration 
of his political authority. 3. His last visit to the province. — 
Its condition. 4. The " Charter of Privileges " (text in Mac- 
Donald, i. 224-229). Fiske, D. and Q. CoPs, ii. 294-311 ; Win- 
sor, America, v. 207-211 ; Fisher, 260-263; Hart, Contempts, ii. 
65-68, 74-77. 

66. Maryland. 

Topics and References. 

I. The revolution in Maryland. — Lord Baltimore deprived of 
the government. 2. Religious intolerance renewed. 3. Proprie- 
tary government restored to the fourth Lord Baltimore. Browne, 
149-156, 184-202 ; Fiske, 0/d Va., ii. 159-169; Fisher, 272-275. 



THE PERIOD OF STRIFE WITH FRANCE. 153 

57. Virginia and the Carolinas, 

Topics and References. 

I. Unaffected by the revolution in England. Cooke, 300-301 ; 
Fisher, 277-278, 292; Hart, Co7ite7np's^ ii. 90-98. 

68. Beginnings of the Conflict with France. 

Topics and References. 

I. How England was led into successive wars with France. — 
Their importance to America. 2. Incidents of " King William's 
War." 3. Colonial Congress at New York in 1690. Bancroft, 
ii. 177-185 ; Parkman, Half CenUuy, i. ch. i., and Frojite^iac, ch. 
x-xxi. ; Hildreth, ii. 126-127 5 Frothingham, Rise of the Rep., 87- 
93 ; Drake, Border Wars, ch. i.-xiv. 

4. "Queen Anne's War." — Its chief incidents. 5. Results of 
the war. — French cessions of American territory to England 
(text in MacDonald, i. 229-232). Parkman, Half Centtiry, i. ch. 
iii.-ix. ; Drake, Border Wars, ch. xv.-xxviii. ; Seeley, Expansion, 
153-155 ; Bancroft, ii. 192-211 ; Hart, ii. 337-339- 

6. Progress of the French in laying hold of the interior. Park- 
man, Half Century, ii. ch. xvii. ; Roosevelt, The Winning, i. 33-35 ; 
Bancroft, ii. 186-191 ; Hosmer, Miss. Valley, 30-50; Dunn, ch. ii. 
Research. — The significance in English and European history 

of the strife for America. Seeley, Expansion, 148-162. 

69. Growing Antagonism between the Colonies and 
the English Government. 

Topics and References. 

I. Spread of independent feeling in the colonies. 2. Object les- 
sons in representative government, in self-taxation, and in the 
"holding of the purse strings," that were learned from England. 
3. English ideas as to colonial government. Frothingham, Rise 
of the Rep., 108-110, 123-128; Fisher, 208-211 ; Hart, Contemp'^s, 
ii. 133-141, 154-169, 352-353- 

4. Effect of the presence of the French on the colonial situation. 
5. Opposing views of the needed colonial union, Frothingham, 
Rise of the Rep., 109-122 ; Seeley, Expansion, 82-83. 
Research. — Fruits in England of the Revolution of 1688 which 

gave an object-lesson to the colonies. Macaulay, Ejtgland, close 

of ch. x. 



154 COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT. 

60. The Board of Trade. — Oppressive ** Acts of 

Trade." 

Topics and References. 

I. Reestablishment of a Board of Trade in England. 2. Eng- 
lish colonial policy identified with commercial policy. 3. Sharp 
measures recommended by the Board, but not adopted. 4. Oppres- 
sive restrictions on colonial manufactures and trade. Frothing- 
ham, Rise of the Rep., 107-108; Hart, Contempts, ii. 1 29-131 ; 
N. V. State Doc's, i. xxviii.; Bancroft, ii. 73-82 ; Hildreth, ii. 197- 
199. 

Research. — Effects of the English commercial system on co- 
lonial feehng. Lecky, iii. 324-328. 

61. The Witchcraft Madness in Salem. 

Topics and References. 

I. Prevalence of the superstitious belief in witchcraft. — The 
awful tragedy to which it gave rise in Salem. Lowell, 81-150 ; Pal- 
frey, iv. 96-132 ; Fiske, N. F. and N. E., ch. v. ; Hart, Conteinp''s, 
ii. 35-48 ; Upham. 

62. Huguenot and German Immigration. 

Topics and References. 

I. Immigration from the Palatinate of the Rhine and from 
France. Bancroft, ii. 265, 266; Cobb; Baird, ch. v. and ix.-xiv. ; 
Hart, Conte7)ip''s, ii. 77-79. 

63. The Carolinas. 1690-1713. 

Topics and References. 

I. Advancing prosperity in South Carolina. 2. Indian war in 
North Carolina. 3. The " Five Nations " of New York made 
"Six Nations." McCrady, i. 531-546; Fiske, Old Va., ii. 298- 
304; Fisher, 292-294; Schoolcraft, 104-113. 

64. Incidents of Progress. 

Topics and References. 

I. Founding of Yale College. 2. The first newspaper. 3. Be- 
ginnings of a postal system. Hart, Cotite^np's, ii. 255-258 ; Ban- 
croft, ii. 258; Fiske, Old Fa., ii. 373-374- 



THE PERIOD OF STRIFE WITH FRANCE. 155 

66. The Hanoverian Kings. — Ministry of Walpole. 

Topics and References. 

I. Succession to the English crown fixed by Parliament. 

2. Weakness of the position of the first Hanoverian kings. 

3. Peace policy of Sir Robert Walpole. Green, 666, 694-696, 
699-700 ; Lecky, i. 376-:i77 ; Earned, England, 495, 509-515. 

QQ. British Officials in the Colonies. 

Topics and References. 

I. The colonists misrepresented by their British governors. 

2. Their claims and aims. Bancroft, ii. 246-251, 340-342 ; Fisher, 
210-211 ; Lecky, iii. 296-297. 

67. The Question of Taxation. 

Topics and References. 

I. Unwillingness of colonists to tax themselves for their own de- 
fence. 2. Walpole's refusal to tax the colonies. Lecky, i. 360 ; 
iii. 344-345; Morley, Walpole, 167-169; Annual Register^ 1765, 
p. 25. 

68. Industrial and Commercial Oppressions. 

Topics and References. 

I. Measures to satisfy English merchants and manufacturers. 
Lecky, iii. 324-328 ; Winsor, America, v. 149, 222-227. 

69. The Carolinas. 1719-1729. 

Topics and References. 

I. Extinction of proprietary government. McCrady, i. ch. xxix.- 
XXX. ; Winsor, America, v. 325-327. 

70. Founding of Georgia. 

Topics and References. 

I. The grant to General Oglethorpe, and its benevolent object 
(text in MacDonald, i. 235-248). 2. Beginnings of settlement. 

3. Futile prohibition of slavery and intoxicating liquors. 4. The 
trusteeship and its ending. Bancroft, ii. 281-299; Winsor, Amer- 
ica, V. ch. vi. ; Fisher, 303-312; Hart, Conteinp''s, ii. 1 10-126. 
Research. — The life and character of General Oglethorpe. 

H. Bruce. 



156 COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT. 

71. English Neglect of the Western Country. 

Topics and References. 

I. Neglect of exploration beyond the mountains. 2. First expe- 
dition into the Shenandoah valley. 3. Recommendations of Gov- 
ernor Spotswood and action of Governor Burnet. Hinsdale, Old 
N. W., 14-18; Cooke, 314-315; Hart, Contempts, ii. 316-324; 
Parkman, Half Century^ ii. 45-46. 

72. The Scotch-Irish in the Appalachian Valleys. 

Topics and References. 

I. Causes of immigration from the north of Ireland into Pennsyl- 
vania. 2. Spread of settlement into the Appalachian valleys. 
3. Southwestward movement. 4. Other immigration taking the 
same direction. Fiske, Old Va., ii. 390-399, and JV. F. and N. E., 
259-262; Roosevelt, The Winnings i. ior-114 ; Bancroft, ii. 265- 
266 ; Hanna, i. ch. xxxix. ; MacLean, ch. ii. 
Research. — Eminent Americans of Scotch-Irish descent. Hanna, 

i. ch. iii. 

73. Death of William Penn. 

Topics and References. 

I. Inheritance of the proprietorship of Pennsylvania by Penn's 
sons. Gordon, ch. ix. ; Sharpless, ch. vi. ; Fiske, D. and Q. Col's, 
ii. 316-317. 

74. Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia. 

Topics and References. 

I. Time and circumstances of the comJng of Franklin to Phila- 
delphia. Franklin, 31-47. 
Research. — The early life of Franklin. Franklin, Autobiography. 

75. Rise of the Newspaper Press. — The Winning 
of its Freedom. 

Topics and References. 

I. Want of freedom for the press in Boston. 2. Early colonial 
newspapers. 3. The Zenger trial and its results. Franklin, 31- 
35 ; Fiske, D. and Q. Col's, ii. 248-257; Winsor, America, v. 198- 
200 ; Frothingham, Rise of the Rep., 128-130 ; Hart, Contempts, ii. 
192-199. 



THE PERIOD OF STRIFE WITH FRANCE. 157 

Research. — The freeing of the press in England. Routledge, 
ch. XX. ; Larned, Ready Ref. 

76. Third Intercolonial War. * 

Topics and References. 

I. War with Spain in 1739. 2. "King George's War." — Its 
name in European history. 3. Capture of Louisbourg by the 
colonists. 4. The New York border left undefended. Bancroft, 
ii. 293-311; Parkman, Half Century^ i. ch. xviii.-xxiv. ; Fiske, 
N. F. and N. E., 249-256 ; Drake, Lotdsbourg ; Hart, Coiitemp's^ 
ii. 34^49- 

77. French and English in the Upper Ohio Valley. 

Topics and References. 

I. Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (text in MacDonald, i. 251-253). — 
Unsettled boundary questions. 2. First English exploration and 
settlement west of the AUeghenies. 3. The French in the upper 
Ohio valley. Parkman, Half Cefiitiry, i. ch. xvii. ; Winsor, MiS' 
sissippi^ 1 71-183, and America, v. 8-12, 490-492 ; Fernow, ch. v.- 
vi. ; Bancroft, ii. 336-337, 343-344, 362-366 ; Hinsdale. Old N. JV., 
57-61; Fiske, A^. F. and N. E,, 264-270; Seeley, Expansion^ 
31-32; Hart, Contempts, ii. 354-356. 

78. Opening of the Final Conflict with France. 

Topics and References. 

1. The claim of Virginia to the region entered by the French. 
Hinsdale, Old N. IV., 73-75, 103-109. 

2. Mission of George Washington to warn the intruders away. 
3. His second mission, commanding a small force. — Opening 
hostilities. Washington, i. 9-124; Bancroft, ii. 377-385; Fiske, 
JV. F. and N. E., 270-276; Lodge, Washingloit, i. 63-79. 
Research. — The early life of Washington. Irving, i. ch. i.-iv. ; 

Lodge, i. ch. ii.-iii. 

79. Indifference of many Colonies to the French 

Advance. 

Topics and References. 

I. Attitude of New York, Pennsylvania, and other colonies. 
Parkman, Half Century^ i. ch. xxiii., and Montcalm, i. ch. vi. ; 



158 COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT. 

Franklin, 196-206; Winsor, America, v. 494 ; Fiske, N. F. aiid 
N. E., 277-278; Hildreth, ii. 433-441 ; Hinsdale, Old N. IV., 60 ; 
Sloane, 99. 

2. Why England had more reason than the colonies for indiffer- 
ence. Lecky, iii. 290-295 ; Johnston, United States, 30-32. 

80. Plans of Colonial Union. 

Topics and References. 

I. Colonial Congress at Albany, 1754. 2. Plan of colonial union 
recommended by it (text in MacDonald, i. 253-257; O.S. Leaf.j 
9). 3. Opposing reasons for rejection of the plan. 4. Board of 
Trade's scheme of union and taxation. Franklin, 231-233 ; Froth- 
ingham. Rise of the Rep., 114-121, 132-151 ; Fiske, N. F. and 
N. E., 279-280 ; Hart, Coniemp's, ii. 357-360. 

81. Braddock's Defeat. 

Topics and References. 

I. Hostilities without declared war. 2. The four English ex- 
peditions planned. 3. Braddock's disastrous failure. 4. Other 
movements and results. 5. Fort-building on lakes Champlain and 
George and the upper Hudson. Bancroft, ii. 419-424, 435-438 ; 
Parkman, Mo7itcalm, ii, ch. vii.-x. ; Fiske, N. F. and N. E.^ 281- 
301 ; Winsor, America^ v. 495-505 ; Sloane, ch. iv. ; Washington, 
i. 141-180; Franklin, 240-258; Hart, Co?itemp's, ii. 365-367. 

82. Dispersion of the Acadian French. 

Topics and References. 

I. Reasons for the removal of French inhabitants from Nova 
Scotia. 2^ Their dispersion. Bancroft, ii. 425-434; Parkman, 
Montcalm, i. ch. viii. ; Winsor, Ajnerica, v. 415-417; Sloane, 
48-49 ; Hart, Conteinp^s, ii. 360-365. 

83. The European " Seven Years' ^War." 

Topics and References. 

I. The opposing combinations of European nations in the war. 
Fiske, N. F. and A\ E., 301-303 ; Sloane, 38-39 ; Earned, Eng- 
land, 481. 

Research. — The European circumstances of the war. Macau- 
lay, Essays, Frederick the Great. 



THE PERIOD OF STRIFE WITH FRANCE. 159 

84. The Turning of the Tide. 

Topics and References. 

I. Two years of French success and English disaster. 2. The 
amazing change brought about by the elder WiUiam Pitt. 3. Eng- 
lish successes of 1758. — Bloody repulse at Ticonderoga. Fiske, 
N. F. afid N. E., 303-325 ; Bancroft, ii. 447-495 ; Parkman, Mofit- 
cahnj ii. ch. xviii.-xxiii. ; Winsor, Ajuerica, v. 505-530; Sloane, 
ch. v.-vi. ; Green, 716-724. 

Research. — The character and career of the elder Pitt. Ma- 
caulay, Essays, Chatha7n. 

85. Conquest of New France. 

Topics and References. 

I. The taking of Quebec by General Wolfe. 2. Capture of 
Crown Point, Fort Ticonderoga, and Fort Niagara. 3. General 
downfall of French power in America. Parkman, Montcalm, 
ii. ch. xxiv.-xxx. ; Winsor, America, v. 531-559 ; Bancroft, ii. 498- 
512, 522-527 ; Fiske, A\ F. and N. E., ch. x. ; Sloane, ch. vii.-viii. ; 
Hart, Conteinp's, ii. 369-372. 

86. Cession of all French Territory in North 

America. 
Topics and References. 

I. Cessions from France to Great Britain by the treaty of Paris. 
2. Cession from France to Spain. 3. Cession from Spain to Great 
Britain (text in MacDonald, i. 261-266). Parkman, Montcahn, ii. 
ch. xxxi.-xxxii. ; Bancroft, ii. 537-542; Sloane, 111-114. 

4. The part borne by the colonies in the war. Hildreth, ii. 514- 
516; Lecky, iii. 295 ; Hart, /^?;7;/<«//<?«, 37-40. 
Research. — Effects of the Seven Years' War on the later history 

of Great Britain. Mahan, Sea Power in Hist.^ 326-329. 

87. Pontiac's War. 

Topics and References. 

I. Reasons for a rising of western Indians against the Eng- 
lish. 2. Pontiac the leader. — Extent of his combination. 3. Re- 
sult of the war. V2Lx\iTCi2C[i^ Conspiracy of P. ; Bancroft, iii. 41-49; 
Hinsdale, Old N. IV., 148; Sloane, 101-103. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE PROVOCATIONS TO REVOLT. 1760-1775. 

88. King George III. In the fall of 1760, immedi- 
ately after the overthrow of the French in America, a new 
king, George III., came to the British throne with very 
old-fashioned notions of kingship in his mind. His great- 
grandfather and his grandfather, the first and second 
Georges, had been helpless royal figures in the hands 
of their ministers, and a system of ministerial govern- 
ment had grown up which the young king was taught 
to look upon as unconstitutional and needing to be put 
down. According to his lights, he was a conscientious 
young man, but narrow-minded and ill-informed. Parlia- 
ment, as then constituted, represented few people except 
a small landlord class, and it was more or less corruptly 
controlled. For the last two generations the cabinet 
ministers had held that control ; but now the king took 
it into his own hands. Those who helped him to do so, 
and who were known as *'the king's friends," 

"The . 

king's soon became his chief ministers ; Pitt had to 

friends." . , . i i i 1 

resign ; statesmanship was superseded by the 
wilful orders of an ignorant sovereign, carried out by 
pliant servants, who obeyed his commands. 

This was England's last experience of dictatorial king- 
ship, and it happened at a time when the government 
could easily be intoxicated with a new sense of power. 
India had been won, as well as America, and British 
supremacy on the broad ocean had been made an un- 



THE PROVOCATIONS TO REVOLT. l6l 

questionable fact. In such circumstances, at such a 
time, it was inevitable that a prince like George III. 
would plunge the expanded empire into serious trouble, 
until he and his ''friends" could be restrained. It was 
inevitable that they would try experiments in high- 
handed government, both at home and in the colonies, 
and that they would try them in stupid ways. They 
began those experiments in England, with an attempt 
to break down the freedom of the press, and they abused 
the rights of Englishmen in their own island, for a time, 
even more than the rights of the colonists were abused. 

89. Tightening the Reins of Colonial Government. 
1760-1761. As to the latter, it w^as a matter of course 
that King George and his revived Tory party should 
take up the long-debated project of taxing the colonies 
and of tightening the reins of imperial government, to 
limit their "home rule." Measures to invigorate the 
administration of the navigation laws, and of all the 
enactments called "acts of trade," were undertaken first. 
By an order in council the customs officers in the colo- 
nies were directed to apply to the courts for search- 
warrants of a kind called "writs of assistance," 

1 • , 111-1 • Writs of 

which would authorize them to enter any pri- assistance, 
vate house and search for smuggled goods. An 
application of that nature was made to the superior 
court at Boston and argued in February, 1761. James 
Otis was engaged by merchants of Boston and Salem 
to oppose it, and did so in a speech of marvellous 
power. " Otis was a flame of fire," wrote John james 
Adams at a later day. "Then and there," he °^^- 
added, ''was the first scene of the first act of opposi- 
tion to the arbitrary claims of Great Britain. Then and 
there the child Independence was born." Awed by the 
deep feeling stirred up, the court delayed its decision 



l62 COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT. 

until it received instructions from England to issue the 
writs. 

Close on the heels of this measure came another more 
odious still. Hitherto judges in the royal provinces had 
been appointed, as in England, " during good behaviour," 
which made their tenure of office independent of the 
crown. In 1761 that constitutional practice was set 
Judges aside. On the death of the chief justice of 
kinVs^ New York, his successor was appointed to 
pleasure." sej-ye "at the king's pleasure," and instruc- 
tions were sent to all colonial governors not to issue 
judicial commissions in any other terms. 

90. Grenville's Measures. 1763. It was not, how- 
ever, until the conclusion of the treaty of peace with 
France and Spain, in 1763, that the government felt 
free to execute its new projects of colonial coercion in 
full. George Grenville, soon to be prime minister, and 
Charles Townshend, president of the Board of Trade, 
were chiefly accountable for what ensued. They began, 
Troops In ^^ March, with a proposal to Parliament that 
America. twenty regiments should be kept in America, 
at the cost of the colonies after the first year. Their 
next measure gave them authority to employ all the 
forces of the navy in the service of the custom-house, to 
enforce the ''acts of trade." 

At the same time, one of the most grievous of the 
acts of trade, called sometimes *'the Sugar Act," some- 
times **the Molasses Act," was amended and revived. 
It had been passed in 1733, to stop the importation of 
sugar or molasses from the French West In- 
Act, 173?- dies into the colonies, in order to "protect" 

1763 •»-» 

the sugar planters of the English islands. But 
the commerce of the New Englanders was half depend- 
ent on this sugar trade. They sold fish, lumber, staves, 



THE PROVOCATIONS TO REVOLT. 163 

provisions, etc., to the French islands, took molasses and 
sugar in exchange, converted them mostly into rum, sold 
the rum elsewhere, and so, after a round of exchanges, 
got money in hand with which to buy English goods. 
To break the round, by cutting sugar out, was to break 
up half their trade, even with England herself. The 
impracticable stupidity of the measure had been discov- 
ered, and it had not been enforced until now, when it 
was suddenly resurrected ; the sugar duties were re- 
duced somewhat, and the exasperating new machinery of 
enforcement was brought into vigorous play. 

The next undertaking was to stop the growth of the 
colonies, by prohibiting their expansion into the great 
interior valleys from which the French had been ex- 
pelled. To that end a royal proclamation was issued in 
October, 1763, establishing governments in eastern Can- 
ada (named Quebec) and in east and west Flor- -yyestern 
ida, but setting apart the whole territory be- fortidoen^ 
tween the Alleghanies and the Mississippi and ^^®'^- 
north and west of the Great Lakes for the use of the 
Indian tribes (see Map IV.). White settlers were for- 
bidden to enter this region, and those who had already 
made homes " westward of the sources of the rivers 
which fall into the sea from the west and northwest " 
were commanded to withdraw.^ 

1 In a subsequent report of the Lords of Trade it was acknow- 
ledged that the primary object of this extraordinary measure was 
to confine " the western extent of settlements to such a distance 
from the sea-coasts as that those settlements should lie within 
reach of the trade and commerce of this kingdom, . . . and also 
of the exercise of that authority and jurisdiction which was con- 
ceived to be necessary for the preservation of the colonies in a 
due subordination to and dependence upon the mother country; " 
with the secondary object of promoting the fur trade. This fairly 
illustrates the wisdom of statesmanship in the government of 
George III. 



l64 COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT. 

91. The Stamp Act. 1764-1765. But the crowning 
measure of Grenville's policy was announced in a series 
of '* Declaratory Resolves " of Parliament, in March, 
1764, and carried out in the spring of the next year. 
The "Stamp Act" then passed imposed a direct tax 
on the colonies, by requiring certain stamps, sold offi- 
cially at prices ranging from three pence to ten pounds, 
to be affixed to all legal and commercial documents, to 
every newspaper, pamphlet, and almanac, and to every 
pack of cards. There were less than fifty votes in the 

House of Commons against the enactment ; 
Colonel ... 

Barry's but One fine speech in opposition was made by 
sposcli. 

Colonel Isaac Barre. Merely as a tax, the stamp 

tax was not intolerable ; but as a challenge to the politi- 
cal doctrine which the colonists had inherited from their 
British ancestry, that " taxation without representation 
is tyranny," it roused a more wrathful resistance than 
anything done before. The defenders of the stamp tax 
argued that the colonies were " virtually represented " 
in Parliament, — as much so as many of the most im- 
portant English cities, which elected no representatives 
in those days, but were assumed to be cared for and 
Doctrine spoken for by every member of the House of 
representa- Commons. This ridiculous doctrine of ** vir- 
*^°""" tual representation " held its ground in Eng- 

land for more than half a century, until Parliament was 
reformed in 1832 ; but it made no impression on the 
American mind in 1764. 

On the first announcement of the intended bill, Bos- 
ton, in town meeting, had led off, and half the colonies 
had followed, in strong remonstrances, beyond which 
few seemed ready to go. But when news of the actual 
passage of the Stamp Act arrived, a young man in the 
Virginia Assembly, Patrick Henry, spoke words that 



THE PROVOCATIONS TO REVOLT. 165 

were like a trumpet call. In a speech of matchless elo- 
quence and boldness, he stirred the people from Georgia 
to Maine. A famous passage of his speech patricic 
was one in which he cried : " Caesar had his ^^ewh* 
Brutus — Charles the First his Cromwell — and ^^®^' 
George the Third" — pausing when some in the As- 
sembly cried "Treason !" and then continuing — "may 
profit by the example. If that be treason, make the 
most of it." 

Early in June, the Massachusetts Assembly sent a 
circular letter to all the colonies, proposing a general 
meeting of delegates from each, "to consult together" 
on the subject of the Stamp Act. The proposal was 
approved, and on the 7th of October delegates stamp Act 
from nine colonies met in congress at New octob"/^' 
York. Able and dignified in its membership, ^^^^" 
this "Stamp Act Congress" discussed the situation 
with calmness, and agreed upon a temperate but firm 
declaration of "the most essential rights and liberties of 
the colonists, and of the grievances under which they 
labor by reason of several late acts of Parliament." In 
this congress the actual beginning of an American Union 
may be said to have been made. 

Meantime, while these decorous expressions were be- 
ing given to the public feeling, a less orderly part of the 
people were venting it in more or less riotous ways. 
Secret societies, pledged to resist the stamp tax, were 
spreading rapidly through most of the colonies, calling 
themselves "Sons of Liberty," having caught "gonsoi 
the name from a phrase in Colonel Barre's ^^^^^y-" 
speech. In some of their public demonstrations the 
Sons of Liberty set mobs in motion which did outrageous 
things. The worst proceeding was in Boston, where the 
house of the chief justice and lieutenant-governor, after- 



l66 COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT. 

ward governor, Thomas Hutchinson, was sacked, and a 
Riots In precious library of books and historical manu- 
New°Yo^* scripts was barbarously destroyed. Though a 
^'^^^' stout supporter of the authority of king and 

Parliament, Hutchinson had used his influence against 
the passage of the Stamp Act, and did not deserve the 
animosity with which he was assailed. In New York, 
defiant of a large body of troops, the Sons of Liberty 
made a bonfire of Lieutenant-Governor Colden's coach, 
with his effigy in it ; threatened to hang him if the troops 
fired on them, and forced him to give up the stamps he 
had received. In other places the stamps were seized 
and destroyed. Generally, in all the colonies, the offi- 
cers appointed to sell the stamps were compelled to re- 
sign. 

92. Repeal of the Stamp Act. 1766. As another 
mode of making their displeasure felt in England, many 
people had been for some time past forming agreements 
not to use English goods, but to wear homespun, to pro- 
mote wool-growing, and to carry on spinning and weav- 
ing in their homes. 

Before the end of the year in which it was passed, the 
Stamp Act was seen to be impossible of enforcement, 
and indefensible on constitutional grounds. Pitt, who had 
been ill when it passed, now praised the colonists for 
resisting it, and demanded its repeal. Lord Camden, one 
of the ablest jurists of the day, supported Pitt's demand. 
The effects of the act had made it hateful to English 
merchants and manufacturers ; and, altogether, it was 
assailed by influences which Parliament could not resist. 
A new ministry, headed by the Marquis of 
ciaratory Rockingham, had lately displaced that of Gren- 

Acta 

ville, and it carried a repealing bill through both 
houses in March, 1766, but tried to save the dignity of 



THE PROVOCATIONS TO REVOLT. 167 

the government by a Declaratory Act, asserting the right 
of the EngHsh Parliament to make laws binding the colo- 
nies " in all cases whatsoever." 

93. The Townshend Acts. 1767. The British troops 
quartered in the colonies were a continuing cause of 
irritation and offence, especially at the head- TheBiuet- 
quarters, in New York. By what was called the 
"Billeting Act," the colonial assemblies were required to 
provide quarters and supplies for them, according to an 
exact prescription ; but the New York Assembly asserted 
a right of judgment in the matter, and ordered the same 
supplies for the troops that would be furnished to them 
in other parts of the king's dominions. This was seized 
upon as proof that something peremptory must be done. 

Charles Townshend, the foremost advocate of colonial 
government by the whip, had now become the ruling 
spirit in the ministry of the day. Pitt had been persuaded 
to lend his name to that ministry as its nom- pittmade 
inal premier ; but he was broken in health, and Chatham, 
soon gave up all duties, accepting a peerage as •^^^^• 
Earl of Chatham, and leaving Townshend in the manage- 
ment of affairs. The latter, in May, 1767, brought sev- 
eral bills into Parliament, suspending the legislative func- 
tions of the New York Assembly ; imposing duties on 
wine, oil, fruits, glass, paper, lead, painters' colors, and 
tea, for a revenue to support civil government in the 
provinces and provide for their defence ; formally legal- 
izing writs of assistance ; and, finally, empowering the 
crown to create a general civil list of crown officials in 
every colony, wholly dependent on the pleasure of the 
kine:. The revenue bill was claimed to be a 

. . The 

concession to the theory of the colonies that revenue 
Parliament might tax them indirectly, by cus- 
toms duties, levied for the general regulation of British 



l68 COLONIAL UF.VKLOPiMENT. 

trade, but might not raise revenue from them by direct 
tax. But this measure was so plainly aimed at a political 
end, and so much else of grave menace to popular rights 
went with it, that the Townshend bills as a whole caused 
deeper alarm to thinking men in America than the Stamp 
Act had done. 

84. Writings of John Dickinson and Samuel Adams. 
1767-1768. The feeling produced when the Townshend 
bills became law was very grave. In December an able 
Pennsylvanian, John Dickinson, began publishing a series 
of what came to be known as the " Farmer's Letters," 
which had a powerful effect. They pleaded with 
"Farmer's the EnHish government for conciliation and 

Letters." , . 

with the colonies for moderation, but showed 
with remarkable plainness the "dangerous innovation" 
of the Townshend acts upon the liberties of the people. 
In the general approbation of these letters there was 
proof that the colonists still desired to be British sub- 
jects, but only on the terms of freedom that British 
subjects enjoyed in the British Isles. Unfortunately 
there was no statesmanship in the English government to 
be influenced by such proofs. The king was completely 
in control. Townshend had died in September, and Lord 
North, a man of good abilities, but with no will of his 
own, took his place in a cabinet of ministers who served 
practically as his majesty's chief clerks. 

Early in 1768 the Massachusetts Assembly adopted a 
series of addresses, to English ministers and to the king, 

and sent a *' Circular Letter " to "each house of 

The work . ,, 

of Samuel representatives or buro^esses on the continent, 

Adams. ... ^ 

inviting correspondence, with a view to action 
on some uniform plan. These remarkably well-written 
papers, strong in argument and temperate but firm in 
tone, are believed to have been entirely the work of 



THE PROVOCATIONS TO REVOLT. 169 

Samuel Adams, the popular leader in Massachusetts, who 
took, from this time, a leading part in the larger colonial 
field. More than any other man, he planned, inspired, 
directed, and organized the movements which prepared 
the colonies for their united revolt. Even he had been 
seeking only to secure for the English in America the 
same rights and same principles in their government that 
Englishmen enjoyed at home. According to his own 
testimony, it was not until later in this year 1768 that he 
came to be convinced that separation from the mother 
country was the only means of escape from wrongs that 
ought not to be endured. 

Several late occurrences had helped, no doubt, to force 
this conviction on Mr. Adams's mind. Governor Ber- 
nard had been ordered from London to dissolve the Mas- 
sachusetts Assembly, because it refused to rescind its 
" Circular Letter," and the other colonies had been threat- 
ened with like treatment if they responded to the letter. 
Revenue seizures made without legal warrant, and at- 
tempts to seize men for enforced naval service, had led 
to collisions between Boston citizens and the officers of 
a British frigate, and those collisions had led to British 
an order for sending two regiments to Boston, to \l^^s?oi, 
be quartered on the town. Finally, the British ■'•^®®* 
authorities had begun to seek testimony on which to 
arrest Adams and other leaders for treason, with a de- 
clared intention to send them to England to be tried. 
This last proceeding was denounced with special bitter- 
ness in England by Burke, Barre, and other rational- 
minded men. 

95. Action in Virginia. — Non-importation. — Par- 
tial Repeal of the Townshend Acts. 1 769-1 770. Vir- 
ginia had received a governor. Lord Botetourt, who tried 
to conciliate the people ; but they were not to be recon- 



170 COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT. 

ciled to such measures as he had to carry out. Washing- 
ton, Jefferson, and Patrick Henry were now members of 
the Assembly, and they took the lead (May, 1769) in 
passing declarations as strong as those of Mas- 
deciaia- sachusetts, against the Townshend acts and 
against the threatened carrying of men beyond 
sea for trial. Copies of these declarations were sent to 
all the other assemblies, with invitations to concur. As 
required by his orders from London, the governor dis- 
solved the Assembly, whereupon the members met in 
convention and passed resolutions, drawn up by Wash- 
ington, which recommended an organized and systematic 
stopping of the importation of English goods until the 
obnoxious acts were repealed. All the colonies soon 
joined in carrying out this plan.^ 

Again, as in 1765-66, the abstention of the colonists 
from using British goods raised a clamor in the British 
business world which the government could not resist. 
It was driven once more to a repeal of its own acts ; but 
tried again, as in 1766, to undo its blunder without heal- 
ing the sore effect. On the 5th of March, 1770, 
retained. Lord North moved the repeal of the revenue 

1770 

act, excepting its preamble and the duty on 
tea, which, he said, "must be retained as a mark of the 
supremacy of Parliament and the efficient declaration of 
its right to govern the colonies." This, as appeared af- 
terward, was demanded by the obstinate king. 

96. The " Boston Massacre." 1770. On the 5th of 

1 The exports from Great Britain to New England, New York, 
and Pennsylvania were cut down by this action from ;^i, 363,3 11, in 
1 768, to ^504,603 in 1 769. The falling off in exports to the southern 
colonies was much less, for the reason that they were much less 
able to manufacture for themselves. Bishop, H/story of American 
Manufactures, i. 374- 



THE PROVOCATIONS TO REVOLT. I/I 

March, the day of Lord North's motion, a tragical and 
exciting event occurred in Boston. The soldiers of two 
regiments brought from Halifax had been in the city for 
nearly a year and a half, making themselves disagreeable 
in many ways, but carefully restrained from any use of 
their arms. They were jeered at frequently by boys and 
men of the ruder class, and on this day, unhappily, a 
squad of nine was provoked to fire into a crowd of un- 
armed people, killing four and wounding seven, of whom 
two afterward died. This '' massacre," as it was styled, 
produced a fierce excitement in Boston, and a great 
town meeting, making Samuel Adams its spokesman, 
demanded that the regiments be sent away. Governor 
Hutchinson (who had succeeded Bernard) bowed to the 
storm, and removed the soldiers to a fort in the Bay. 

97. The Carolina Regulators. 1771-1772. After 
this, for some time, a state of comparative quiet prevailed 
in all the colonies except the Carolinas, where a conflict 
occurred between the royal authorities of the province 
and the inhabitants of the western frontier. Those rude, 
hardy, "up country" settlers had received little attention 
from the colonial government, except in harassing ways. 
Having no proper courts in their own region, they had 
formed companies called " Regulators " which dealt with 
criminals by what afterward got the name of " lynch law," 
and they refused obedience to warrants issued 
by the far-away royal courts. The resulting Aiamajice, 
conflict came to a crisis of battle on the Ala- 
mance, North Carolina, in 1771, and the Regulators were 
defeated with heavy loss. 

Many of the defeated Regulators now crossed the 
mountains and joined a body of settlers who had defied 
the king's proclamation of 1763 (see sect. 90), and 
planted themselves on the Watauga and Holston rivers. 



1/2 COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT. 

within what afterward became the State of Tennessee. 
There, under the lead of John Sevier and James Robert- 
son, a community derived mostly from the Scotch-Irish 
stock framed a government for itself, by what 
Associa- were described as the " Articles of the Wa- 

tlon "1772. 

' tauga Association " (1772), constituting the first 
practically independent commonwealth on American soil. 

98. •' Lord Dunmore's War." 1774. From this time, 
bold encroachments on the Indian hunting grounds be- 
yond the mountains went on, both south west wardly and 
northwestwardly, until a savage outbreak of war was pro- 
voked, in the spring of 1774. The clash came in conse- 
quence of the brutal murder of the whole family of Logan, 
a friendly and much esteemed chief, the story of whose 
wrongs, told with pathetic eloquence in a reputed speech 
of his own, is one of the most familiar pieces of early 
American literature. The governor of Virginia was held 
to be mainly responsible for what occurred, and the war 
is commonly referred to as " Lord Dunmore's War." It 
Battle oi ^^^s ended in October, by a terrific battle at 
fait^o^ctober ^^^^^ Pleasant, on the Great Kanawha, where 
10, 1774. ^Y\e Indians, under the Shawnee chief Cornstalk, 
were so crushingly defeated by the backwoodsmen, com- 
manded by General Andrew Lewis, that their country 
was practically free to white settlement from that time. 

99. Fresh Exasperations. — Institution of '• Com- 
mittees of Correspondence." 1772-1773. After the par- 
tial repeal of the Townshend acts, the non-importation 
agreements in the colonies were not effectively carried 
out ; but the use of tea, except as smuggled from the 

Dutch, was generally stopped. Against that 
the^Qafpee, smuggling, and other breaches of the acts of 

1772 00 o 

trade, British naval officers on the coast were 
kept active, and the commander of one vessel, the Gas- 



THE PROVOCATIONS TO REVOLT. 1/3 

pee, in Narragansett Bay, was accused of wanton destruc- 
tiveness in what he did. Complaints against him having 
no effect, the exasperated people at length, in June, 1772, 
attacked his ship, while aground, captured it, and burned 
it, setting the crew on shore. 

Close on the heels of this exciting event came an 
order from the- kino: that the Massachusetts 

. ... Judges 

iudsres, who held their seats at his pleasure, salaried by 

•' ° ^ the king. 

should also take their salary from the crown. If 
there had been any quieting of rebellious feeling in Mas- 
sachusetts, this roused it afresh ; and it was now that 
Samuel Adams set on foot a movement which organized 
the patriotic party of the colony in a remarkably effective 
way. His plan was the creation of ''committees of cor- 
respondence," to act representatively for the patriots of 
every town, as agents of communication and common 
action between all parts. Every town soon had its com- 
mittee, and all were keeping in close touch with one an- 
other, under the constant influence of the Boston leaders, 
of whom Samuel and John Adams, Dr. Joseph Warren, 
and John Hancock were in the front. A little later, in 
the spring of 1773, the idea of the committees of corre- 
spondence was taken up in Virginia, and developed into 
an inter-colonial system of consultation and agreement. 
This proved to be a most important measure of prepara- 
tion for what now came to pass. 

100. The " Boston Tea-Party." 1773. Seeing that 
the colonists could in no way be forced to buy taxed tea. 
King George conceived the notion that they might be 
bribed. That they cared for anything more than the 
three pence per pound of duty was more than he could 
understand. His scheme was to pay such a drawback to 
the East India Company on tea taken to America that 
it might be sold there, even after paying Townshend's 



174 COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT. 

duty, at a price below that of the smuggled Dutch teas. 

His obedient ministers arranged things with 

George's the Company as he wished, and several care^oes 

scheme, 

were shipped to Boston, New York, Philadel- 
phia, and Charleston, in the fall of 1773. When the 
coming of the tea-ships was known, the patriot party 
in every one of the four ports determined that no sale of 
the cargoes should be allowed. At New York, Phila- 
delphia, and Charleston, the appointed consignees of the 
cargoes were persuaded to decline receiving them ; but 
the Boston consignees would agree to no such course. 
When the ships arrived at that port, urgent efforts were 
made to induce Governor Hutchinson to send them back, 
but he refused, and ordered the fort to fire on them if 
they attempted to leave port. In this extremity, a party 
of determined men, disguised as Indians, boarded the 
ships and poured the contents of the tea-chests into the 
sea (December 16, 1763). 

101. The Punishing of Boston and Massachusetts. 
1774. Naturally, King George and his party were en- 
raged by this act, and a sharp punishment of Boston and 
Massachusetts was planned. Burke, in one of his grand- 
est speeches, argued for a just conciliation, by repealing 
the tea duty, and others made the same plea, but without 
avail. By large majorities in both houses, five acts for 
the regulation of American affairs were passed in the 
spring of 1774. One of them, called the Port Bill, closed 
the port of Boston, allowins: no ship to enter or 

Port Bill ^ ' & Jr' 

andRegu- clear. A second, known as the Resfulatins: Act, 

lating Act. t> £> » 

annulled the charter of Massachusetts, made 
the authority of its royal governor and his council 
supreme, and forbade town meetings for any other busi- 
ness than the election of officers for the towns. A third 
act provided that any magistrate, revenue officer, or sol- 



THE PROVOCATIONS TO REVOLT. 175 

dier indicted in Massachusetts for murder should be sent 
to England for trial, — which plainly gave encourage- 
ment to violent military acts. The fourth law removed 
all legal hindrances to the quartering of troops. The 
fifth, called the Quebec Act, aimed to extin- Quebec 
guish the western territorial claims of all the •^°^- 
colonies, by adding the whole region west of the moun- 
tains, and north of the Ohio River, to the province of 
Quebec (see Map IV.). 

To enforce these acts of atrocious despotism. General 
Gage, with four regiments added to his command, was 
sent to supersede Governor Hutchinson, placing Massa- 
chusetts under military rule. He came with instructions 
to arrest Adams and other Boston leaders and send them 
to England for trial, but saw that it was not prudent to 
make the attempt. He found the patriots of Massachu- 
setts undaunted, and supported in their attitude by all 
the colonies, south and north. Contributions to relieve 
the suffering which the Port Bill caused, and messages 
to encourage the oppressed city and province, came in 
from all sides. 

102. The Continental Congress. 1774. Virginia 
declared that an attack on one colony was an attack on 
all, and endorsed the proposal of a Continental Congress,^ 
already made in various quarters, asking Massachusetts 
to name the time and place. The Massachusetts Assem- 
bly did so ; and that immortal body, the Continental 
Congress of 1774, was invited to meet at Philadelphia, 
every province responding heartily to the invitation. 
When, on the 5th of September, the Congress came to- 

^ " From the constant use of the phrase ' the whole continent,' to 
express general action, came the fine adjective so long significant 
of union — continental." W. M. Sloane, The French War and 
the Revolution, p. 172. 



1/6 COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT. 

gether, in Carpenters' Hall, twelve colonies were repre- 
sented, and its roll-call is full of great names.^ None 
came from Georgia, but the Georgians were in full ac- 
cord. With the opening of this meeting the first act of 
revolution may be said to have begun. 

103. New England Temper displayed. — The Suf- 
folk County Resolutions. 1774. The Continental Con- 
gress, meeting at Philadelphia on the 5th of September, 
soon had news from Massachusetts of exciting events. 
On the 1st of the month General Gage had sent troops 
from Boston to seize some powder that was stored for 
the provincial militia at Quarry Hill. As reports of this 
proceeding ran from town to town, colored with rumors 
of fighting, the whole country had risen up, and not less 
than 20,000 men were believed to be on the march for 
Boston, before messages sent out by the patriot leaders 
could bring the sudden movement to a stop. This for- 
midable demonstration opened Gage's eyes ; and he was 
enlightened still more when he heard of the excitement 
in other provinces. He had not believed that the men 
of Massachusetts would really face a conflict with the 
king's troops, nor that the other colonies would come to 
their help if they did. Now he began to see 
Gage the truth, and began to try to make it known 

to the ministry and the king. *'The people," 
he wrote to London, " are numerous, waked up to a fury, 
and not a Boston rabble, but the freeholders of the 
county ; " and he gave his opinion that the act for regulat- 
ing the government of Massachusetts could not be car- 

1 Among the members of the First Continental Congress were 
Samuel Adams, John Adams, Roger Sherman, John Jay, Philip and 
William Livingston, John Dickinson, George Washington, Patrick 
Henry, Peyton Randolph, Richard Henry Lee, Edmund Pendleton, 
John and Edward Rutledge, Christopher Gadsden. 



THE PROVOCATIONS TO REVOLT. I// 

ried into effect with an army of less than 20,000 men. 
At the same time he made haste to build fortifications 
on Boston Neck. 

On the 9th of September a convention of the towns 
and districts of Suffolk County (embracing Boston) 
adopted a series of bold resolutions, reported The Suffolk 
by the intrepid Dr. Joseph Warren, declaring, "solutions, 
among other things, that all crown officers in the pro- 
vince should be seized as hostages if a single arrest for 
political reasons should be made. This left no doubt as 
to the spirit with which the people most immediately 
concerned were facing the prospect of a conflict with 
British power. 

104. Action of the Continental Congress. 1774. 
Nor could there be any reasonable doubt of the readiness 
of the other colonies to stand by Massachusetts, after 
the Continental Congress had declared itself. On re- 
ceiving the resolutions of the Suffolk County Conven- 
tion, the Congress approved them, and resolved that if 
any attempt should be made to enforce the Massachu- 
setts Regulating Act, against the opposition of the in- 
habitants, "all America ought to support them." After 
four weeks of earnest debate and deliberation, 
it adopted a Declaration of Rights, especially tionof 
setting forth the claim of the people of Amer- 
ica to "a free and exclusive power of legislation in their 
provincial legislatures," " in all cases of taxation and in- 
ternal polity." A respectful petition to the king, an 
address to the people of British America, including Que- 
bec, and an earnest address to the people of England 
were also adopted and sent forth. *' Permit us," said 
the address to the English people, "to be as free as 
yourselves, and we shall ever esteem a union with you 
to be our greatest glory and our greatest happiness." 



178 COLONIAL DEVELOPMENT. 

Before adjourning, the Congress agreed on a systematic 
plan of commercial non-intercourse with Great Britain, 
and formed an association to give it effect. The cove- 
nant entered into for that purpose declared, among other 
things, this : " We will neither import nor purchase any 
Slave trade sl^ve imported after the first day of December 
renounced, ^gxt, after which time we will wholly discon- 
tinue the slave trade, and will neither be concerned in it 
ourselves, nor will we hire our vessels nor sell our com- 
modities or manufactures to those who are concerned in 
it." Finally, a second Congress was called to meet on 
the loth of May, 1775. 

105. The "Olive Branch" offered by Lord North. 
February, 1775. The appeals of the Continental Con- 
gress, which all just minds admired, were treated by 
King George and his party with contempt. Lord Chat- 
ham, Lord Camden, Burke, Fox, Barre, and others ex- 
erted their eloquence and their powers of argument to 
dissuade Parliament from driving the Americans to a 
despairing defence of their rights, and Franklin, as agent 
Efiortsfor ^^^ several of the colonies in P^ngland, labored 
peace. ^q ^^q same end. These efforts were sup- 

ported, too, by petitions from London, Bristol, and other 
cities ; but nothing availed. Parliament adopted an ad- 
dress to the king which declared rebellion to be existing 
in Massachusetts, and the king pledged himself in reply 
(February 9, 1775) to enforce "obedience to the laws 
and the authority of the supreme legislature ; " yet, a few 
days later. Lord North, with the king's consent, proposed 
and carried a resolution in the House of Commons which 
he looked upon as an "olive branch" of generous com- 
promise. It offered to exempt the colonies from all tax- 
ation excepting duties for the regulation of commerce, 
provided they would tax themselves to the satisfaction of 



THE PROVOCATIONS TO REVOLT. 1/9 

Parliament and the king; but it promised no restoration 
•of free government to Massachusetts, nor guarantees to 
any colony of future respect for the simplest constitu- 
tional rights. It was hoped that some of the provinces, 
New York especially, might be brought, on these terms, 
to break away from New England, and leave 
that troublesome section to be dealt with alone ; branch" 
but the scheme failed. Jefferson prepared and 
Congress adopted a reply to the proposal which exposed 
the delusiveness of its terms. 

106. Arming for the Conflict. — The ** Minute Men." 
1774-1775. Meantime, in every colony, the people 
had been ratifying the declarations and pledges of the 
Continental Congress, and armed organizations were 
springing up in all parts of the land. In Massachusetts 
the Regulating Act had been made of no effect by the 
mere force of public feeling, which would not permit coun- 
cillors, judges, sheriffs, or jurymen to serve under the 
commission of the king. Practically, the province had 
placed itself under a provisional government of its own, 
composed of the members chosen for its Assembly, who 
were not permitted by General Gage to meet at their 
appointed time and place. They met elsewhere, in Oc- 
tober, 1774; appointed a ''Committee of committee 
Safety," with Warren for its chairman, and 0* Safety, 
gave to that famous committee large discretionary 
powers, to collect military stores, and to call out the 
militia, one fourth of whom, styled " Minute Men," were 
to be ready always for answering a summons to arms. 



l8o THE PROVOCATIONS TO REVOLT. 

TOPICS AND SUGGESTED READING AND RESEARCH. . 

88. King George III. 

Topics and References. 

I. Character and training of George III. 2. Circumstances that 
gave power to the king and his " friends." Lecky, iii. 1 1-25 ; Green, 
726-730; Fiske, Am. Rev., i. 38-45; Sloane, 105-107; Hart, 
Coutemp's, ii. 373-374- 

3. Experiments of the king and his " friends " in high-handed 
government. Lecky, iii. 76-89, 139-166; Green, 731-734; Hos- 
mer, Hutchinson, 71 ; Sloane, 129-130. 

Research. — General character of the first twenty years of the 
government of George III. S^^Xty, Expafision, 176-177; Ma- 
caulay, Essays, Chatham (second Essay). 

89. Tightening the Reins of Colonial Government. 

Topics and References. 

I. "Writs of Assistance" (text in MacDonald, i. 258-261). — 
Speech of Otis against them. 2. Appointment of Judges to serve 
" at the king's pleasure." Bancroft, ii. 546-552; Sloane, 124-126; 
Hutchinson, iii. 89-95 ; Hosmer, Adams, 39-45, and Hutchinson, 
^<^-(ii; Hart, Contempts, ii. 374-378. 
Research. — Otis's argument against Writs of Assistance. Tudor, 

Otis, ch. vi. ; J. Adams, Wor'ks, x. 314-355. 

90. Grenville's Measures. 

Topics and References. 

I. George Grenville and Charles Townshend : their offices in the 
British government. 2. Employment of army and navy to enforce 
"Acts of Trade." 3. The "Sugar" or "Molasses" Act (text 
in MacDonald, i. 272-281). — Its purpose and effect. Bancroft, iii. 
30-36; Lecky, iii. 332-337; Hutchinson, iii. 102-112; Hart, Coji- 
temp's, ii. 381-382, 415-417. 

4. King George's proclamation forbidding settlement west of the 
mountains. Hinsdale, Old N. W., 120-141 ; King, ch. iv. ; Roose- 
velt, The Wintiing, i. 166. 

Research. — The claim that King George's proclamation of 1763 
was to protect and pacify the Indian tribes. Kingsford, v. 133- 
145; Fernow, 173-177. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. l8l 

91. The Stamp Act. 

Topics and References. 

I. The Stamp Act and its provisions (text in MacDonald, i. 
281-305; Preston, 188-191 ; 1.2iYUQ.d, Ready Re/.). 2. Why it roused 
so much resistance. 3. The doctrine of " virtual representation." 
4. Patrick Henry's speech. 5. The Stamp Act Congress and its 
action. 5. The " Sons of Liberty " and their doings. — Riotous 
conduct of mobs. Frothingham, Rise of the Rep.^ 164-196 ; Ban- 
croft, iii. 55-58, 70-71, 95-116, 134-164; Hosmer, Hutchitison^ ch. 
iv., and Adams, 50-53 ; Tyler, P. Henry, 58-79 ; Fiske, Essays, 
i. 27-31 ; Lecky, iii. 339-361 ; Hutchinson, iii. 1 16-128 ; Hart, Con- 
temp'' s, ii. 402-404, 397-400 ; Sloane, 118, 133-139. 
Research. — The question of the right of Parliament to tax the 

colonies. Lecky, iii. 341-344, 353-356 ; Franklin, Works, vii. 

501-502. 

92. Repeal of the Stamp Act. 

Topics and References. 

I. The repeal of the Stamp Act. 2. Authority of Parliament 
asserted in a Declaratory Act (text in MacDonald, i. 316-317). 
Lecky, iii. 361-375 ; Bancroft, iii. 167-214 ; Hosmer, Adams, 78- 
88; Morse, Franklin, 11 2-1 32; Hart, Contempts, ii. 404-412; 
Sloane, 139-141. 

93. The Townshend Acts. 

Topics and References. 

I. The "Billeting Act." — Action of the New York Assembly 
(texts in MacDonald, i. 306-313, 317-320). 2. Pitt's nominal min- 
istry, and his elevation to the peerage. 3. Townshend's bills and 
their alarming provisions (texts in MacDonald, i. 320-330). Hos- 
mer, Adams, 98-100 ; Lecky, iii. 378-386; Bancroft, iii. 221-257; 
Sloane, 142-147; Hart, Contemp''s^ ii. 413-415; Hutchinson, iii. 
168-182. 

94. Writings of John Dickinson and Samuel Adams. 

Topics and References. 

I. The " Farmer's Letters " of Dickinson. 2. General approval 
of them and what it showed. StilM, ch. iv. ; Dickinson, Writings, 
i. ; Bancroft, iii. 264-265 ; Hart, Conte?np''s, ii. 423-426. 



l82 THE PROVOCATIONS TO REVOLT. 

3. Lord North's ministry. — Its subservience to the king. 4. Ad- 
dresses and " Circular Letter " of the Massachusetts Assembly 
(text in MacDonald, i. 330-334). 5. Work and influence of Samuel 
Adams. 6. Dissolution of the Massachusetts Assembly. — Colli- 
sions between citizens and naval officers. — Troops ordered to Bos- 
ton. 7. Threatened arrest and conveyance of Adams and others 
to England for trial. Sloane, 1 47-1 51 ; Hosmer, Adams, 102-119; 
Bancroft, iii. 262-263, 272-276, 284-294; Frothingham, Rise of the 
Rep., 206-233 ; Lecky, iii. 387-395 ; Hart, Conte7np''s, ii. 420-423 ; 
Hutchinson, iii. 183-224. 

95. Action in Virginia. — Non-importation Agree- 
ments. — Partial Repeal of the Townshend Acts. 

Topics and References. 

I. Virginia declarations (text in MacDonald, i. 334-335) and 
proposals to stop importation of English goods. 2. Effect of the 
non-importation pohcy in England. 3. Repeal of the Revenue 
Act, excepting the duty on tea. 4. Object of the retention of the 
duty on tea. Sloane, 154-157; Lecky, iii. 396, 401-404; Frothing- 
ham, Rise of the Rep., 233-241 ; Bancroft, iii. 347-348, 380-385. 
Research. — Extent of the abstinence in the colonies from the 

use of English goods. Franklin, Works, vii. 441 ; Winsor, Afner- 

ica, vi. 76-80; Hart, Contevip''s^ ii. 439-441. 

96. The *' Boston Massacre." 

Topics and References. v 

I. Boston citizens fired upon by British troops. — Removal of the 
regiments from the city. J. Adams, Works, ii. 229-236 ; Hosmer, 
Ada?ns, 160-182, and Hjitchinson, ch. vii.; Bancroft, iii. 370-378; 
Lecky, iii. 397-401 ; Hart, Co7itemp^s, ii. 429-431 ; Hutchinson iii. 
263-280. 

97. The Carolina Regulators. 

Topics and References. 

I. Origin of the " Regulators." 2. Their conflict with the gov- 
ernment. — Battle of the Alamance. Roosevelt, The Wiiuiing, i. 
105-110; Sloane, 151, 159-160; Bancroft, iii. 232-233, 394-395, 
398-403; Am. Hist. Ass'n, 1894. 

3. Settlers in East Tennessee. — Articles of the Watauga Asso- 
ciation. Roosevelt, The Winning, i. 172-193; Phelan, ch. i.-iii. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 183 

98. " Lord Dunmore's War." 

Topics and References. 

I. Provocations to an Indian outbreak. — Murder of Logan's 
family. 2. Battle of Point Pleasant. Winsor, Westward, ch. v. ; 
Roosevelt, The Winnings i. ch. viii.-ix. ; Jefferson, iii. 156-165. 



99. Fresh Exasperations. — Institution of Commit- 
tees of Correspondence. 

Topics and References. 

I. Tea smuggling. — Burning of the Gaspee. 2. Massachusetts 
judges to be paid by the king. 3. Committees of Correspond- 
ence organized in Massachusetts. 4. The idea taken up in Vir- 
ginia and developed into an inter-colonial system (text in Mac- 
Donald, i. 336-337)- Bancroft, iii. 414-415. 423, 426-428, 436-437 ; 
Hosmer, Adams, 190-206; Sloane, 160-162; Frothingham, Rise 
of the Rep., 265-286. 
Research. — The objections to a payment of judges' salaries by 

the king. J. Adams, ii. 316-317 ; iii. 513-574. 

100. The "Boston Tea-Party." 

Topics and References. 

I. King George's scheme for selling taxed tea to the colonies. 
2. Treatment of the tea-ships at New York, Philadelphia, and 
Charleston. 3. The "tea-party" at Boston. Hosmer, Adams, 
235-236, 243-256; Frothingham, Rise of the Rep,, 296-314; Fiske, 
A?n. Rev., i. 82-92; Hart, Contempts, ii. 431-433; Hutchinson, iii. 
422-441 ; Bancroft, iii. 443-458 ; O. S. Leaf, 68; Sloane, 166-168. 

101. The Punishing of Boston and Massachusetts. 

Topics and References. 

I. The five revengeful acts of Parliament (texts in MacDon- 
ald, i. 337-356). 2. Governor Hutchinson superseded by General 
Gage. — Massachusetts under military rule. 3. Sympathy and sup- 
port from other colonies. Lecky, iii. 421-439 ; Frothingham, Rise 
of the Rep., 317-330, 344-348 ; Hosmer, Adajns, 264-274, 280-288 ; 
Bancroft, iii. 471-482, iv. 5-18; Hutchinson, iii. 454-460; Wash- 
ington, ii. 418-426, 429-436. 



lS4 THE PROVOCATIONS TO REVOLT. 

Research. — The suffering produced in Boston. Frothingham, 
J\ise of the Rep., 324. — Trovisions of the Quebec Act. Kings- 
ford, V. 2i\-iQ>\ ; Hinsdale, Old N. IV., 141-143. 

102. The Continental Congress. 

Topics and References. 

I. A Continental Congress proposed. 2. Meeting of the Con- 
gress. — Its illustrious members. Frothingham, R/se of the Rep., 
359-365; Hildreth, iii. 38-42; Bancroft, iv. 23-24, 30-36; Sloane, 
170-176; Hart. Confevip's, ii. 434-439. 

103. New England Temper displayed. — The Suffolk 
County Resolutions. 

Topics and References. 

I. Effect of an attempt to seize provincial powder. 2. Its reve- 
lation to General Gage. 3. Suffolk County resolutions (text in 
Am. A?'chives, i. 776-782). Fiske, Ajh. Rev.^ i. 106-109; Ban- 
croft, iv. 52-60. 

104. Action of the Continental Congress. 

Topics and References. 

I. Promised support to Massachusetts. 2. Declaration of Amer- 
ican Rights (text in MacDonald, i. 356-361). 3. Petitions and 
addresses. 4. Association and covenant to stop trade with Great 
Britain (text in MacDonald, i. 362-367). 5. Action concerning 
the slave trade. J. Adams, i. 149-164 ; ii. 365-400 ; Morse, Ada)ns, 
ch. ii. ; Hosmer, Adams, 307-321 ; Frothingham, Rise of the Rep., 
364-391; Bancroft, iv. 61-77; Lecky, iii. 443-455; Hildreth, iii. 
42-46; Hart, Contempts, ii. 439-441. 
Research. — Address of the Congress to the inhabitants of the 

Province of Quebec, and its effect. Kingsford, v. 249-255, 262- 

267. 

105. The " Olive Branch " offered by Lord North. 

Topics and References. 

I. Reception in England of the appeals of Congress. 2. Con- 
cessions offered by Lord North (text in MacDonald, i. 367-368). 
3. The reply of Congress (text in MacDonald, i. 385-389). Hil- 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 185 

dreth, iii. 57-65; Bancroft, iv. 96-105, 1 14-120, 127-130; Froth- 
ingham, Rise of the Rep., 406-413 ; Lecky, iii. 456-461. 

106. Arming for the Conflict. — The " Minute Men." 

Topics and References. 

I. General approval of the action of Congress. 2. Armed 

organizations. 3. Practical nullification of the Regulating Act in 

b Massachusetts. 4. " Committee of Safety." 5. Massachusetts 

" Minute Men." Frothingham, Rise of the Rep., 392-395, and 

Siege of Boston, 41-43; Bancroft, iv. 121-125, 130-131. 



\ 



THE MAKING OF A NATION. 
1775-1800. 



THE STATE OF THE THIRTEEN COLONIES AT 
THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR OF INDE- 
PENDENCE.i 

The Country and the People. — Conditmis of Life. The pop- 
ulation of the thirteen colonies at the beginning of the War 
of Independence was probably not far from 3,000,000 (some 
have estimated more, some less), of whom about 500,000 

were slaves. It was a population so scattered on a 
Scattered 
popuia- narrow fringe of seaboard country 1200 miles long, 

and so separated by obstacles to transportation and 
travel, that it could not exert its whole military strength. Its 
territory was crossed by many large rivers, not one of which 
was bridged, and all descriptions of the roads represent them 
as being very rudely made. In their command of the ocean 
an enormous advantage was held on the British side. 

Generally speaking, these Americans of the later colonial 
period lived as comfortably, no doubt, with as much of per- 
sonal independence in their lives, as any people in the world. 
Actual poverty was quite uncommon in most of the colonies, 
while considerable wealth was not. Trade, ship-building, 
ship-owning, cod-fisheries, whale-fishing, had enriched many 
in the northern and middle colonies; tobacco, rice, and in- 
digo culture, by slave labor, had done the same in the south ; 
and the minor industries of the farm and the shop were 

^ See Maps IV., V., VI., and VII. 



BEGINNING OF WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 187 

everywhere in a prosperous state. It was the prosperity of 

the colonies — the signs of wealth amons^ them — 

... 1 Prosperity 

that most excited the determination in England to and 

tax them and to monopolize their trade. Their 
country was looked upon as a piece of British national pro- 
perty, — an imperial estate, — which the tenants ought to cul- 
tivate for the benefit of its landlords instead of making them- 
selves rich. 

Domestic Manufactures. The very efforts of the home 
government to compel the colonists to buy British goods 
drove them into manufacturing as far as possible for them- 
selves. There seems to have been as much of public policy 
as of gain-seeking in what they did to that end. They formed 
societies and committees " for the promotion of arts and 
economy ; " offered premiums for flax-growing, for 
spun yarns and woven fabrics, for leather-dressing ofindus- 
and shoe-making, and the like ; opened spinning 
schools ; organized spinning-matches between the young 
women of towns and neighborhoods, and spinning and weav- 
ing exhibitions, to stimulate household manufacturing, which 
had to be depended on mostly for the results desired. The 
outcome of all this persevering effort was, that when they 
undertook retaliation for oppressive measures of the British 
government, by leagues and pledges not to buy certain classes 
of English goods, they were tolerably well prepared to supply 
themselves. This was truer of the northern and middle col- 
onies, however, than of those at the south, where the different 
conditions of society and labor forbade the same results. 

" The household industry of the New Ensfland pro- 

1 r r , . , ,, 1 • Extent ol 

vmces, and of some parts of the middle colonies, was household 

nearly or quite equal to the ordinary wants of the 
inhabitants for clothing," at the opening of the War of Inde- 
pendence ; "but the scarcity and dearness of clothing and 
camp furniture, particularly of woollens suitable for the use 
of the army, was early experienced." ^ 

^ Bishop, History of American Manufactures, i. 390. 



l88 STATE OF THE COLONIES. 

Class Differences. Differences of wealth had produced in 
some colonies marked differences of class. That effect was 
most notable at the south. The exceptional circumstances 
of the wealthy planters, especially in Virginia, made them 
proud, masterful, accustomed to the exercise of authority, and 
gave the superior men among them an advantageous training 
Virginia ^^^ leadership in the public affairs of a revolution- 
leader, ^^.y tirng That they furnished somewhat more than 
their proportion of leaders to the Revolution, and to the 
politics of the Union for some decades after it was consti- 
tutionally formed, is an explainable fact. The circumstances 
of the planters of South Carolina differed essentially from 
those existing in Virginia. They lived less on their planta- 
Oharies- tions, which were, to a great extent, in unhealthy 
*""' places. Their residence was in Charleston, more 

than on their estates, and that city, the one important seat 
of trade at the south, centralized every kind of influence in 
itself. 

Hereditary wealth in lands and slaves caused a class dis- 
tinction in the southern colonies ; in New York that distinc- 
tion was caused by hereditary wealth in lands alone. Some 
of the great patroon estates, of Dutch creation (see sect. 
33), had survived on the Hudson, and some others of like 
magnitude had been acquired during the English rule. They 
were preserved from division by what is known as the law of 
Primo- primogeniture, which makes the eldest son in a 
geniture. family the sole heir to his father's lands, and so 
keeps the estate unbroken from generation to generation. 
Until after the Revolution that law prevailed in the southern 
colonies and in New York. The families holding these so- 
called " manors " gave the lead to what was looked upon as 
an aristocratic caste, the influence of which in public affairs 

was resented and opposed by a strong democratic 
Class dll- ff J to 

lerencesin party among the people. That antagonism of 

classes became violent in the Leisler episode (see 

sect. 53), and existed long afterward, entering more or less 



BFXrINNING OF WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 189 

into the subsequent rally of parties for and against the op- 
pressive measures of the British Parliament and crown. 
Many, however, of the wealthy families — Schuylers, Liv- 
ingstons, Van Rensselaers, Jays, Clintons, for example — 
took the patriotic side. The colonial Tory party was stronger 
in New York than elsewhere, mainly for the reason that New 
York city was the British military headquarters, and the 
army officers brought potent influences to bear on its people, 
in both a social and a business way. Despite such influences, 
the Whig or patriot party showed remarkable determination 
and strength. 

Colonial Massachusetts was not without a very well-marked 
class to which some social deference was paid, but its claims 
to such deference were founded on superior culture quite as 

much, at least, as on superior wealth. Education 

, Society In 

m the elementary sense was almost universal ; the Massachu- 

setts 
finer cultivation of thought, language, and manner, 

which never becomes universal, seems to have conferred 
more than usual distinction in the old Puritan community, 
and commanded especial respect. But all classes were as 
nearly of one mind as it is possible for a mixed public to be, 
on the subject of their political rights. There were not a 
few Tories in the province, many of them, like Governor 
Hutchinson, men of sincere conviction, to whom their country 
was very dear, and who believed they were doing it the best 
service by resistmg rebellion against the Parliament and the 
king ; but they were largely outnumbered by the people who 
felt justified in going to any length of resistance when their 
liberties were assailed. While this was generally true of the 
colonies, the Tory party was more numerous in most of them, 
and more respectable in character, than used to be supposed. 
Political Literature. A century of controversy with English 
kings, ministers, and parliaments, 'defending their colonial 
charters and their constitutional rights as British subjects, 
had stimulated and educated the people of the colonies re- 
markably in the direction of political knowledge and thought. 



IQO STATE OF THE COLONIES. 

Especially in its later years, the argumentation of that excit- 
ing dispute had been, both in England and in America, an 
intellectual influence of great force. In both countries it 
had trained men, not only in political thinking, but in the 
clear and strong expression of political thought. It pro- 
duced, as a consequence, in the generation that brought the 
controversy to its crisis, such a body of political literature. 
Political English and American, as can hardly be matched 
Mjiing -^^ ^^^, other time, in any tongue. The parlia- 
wTiting. mentary oratory of Great Britain has nothing to 
surpass, if anything to equal, the speeches on American 
questions of Burke, Chatham, Fox, and others ; while the 
speeches, pamphlets^ memorials, formal addresses, and de- 
clarations which poured from colonial lips and pens — from 
James Otis, Patrick Henr}-, Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Adams, 
John Adams. John Dickinson, Joseph Warren, Thomas Jeffer- 
son, Thomas Paine, George Mason, Richard Henry Lee, Peyton 
Randolph, Daniel Dulaney, Christopher Gadsden, John Jay, 
the youthful Alexander Hamilton, and many more — repre- 
sent the high mark of American literature in the political 
field.i 

Other Literature. In other fields, two American names 

had been written so hi£;h as to be counted amoner 
Edwards * . 

and the few of great distinction in the world at large. 

Jonathan Edwards in philosophy and Benjamin 

Franklin in science and all practical wisdom had won that 

1 Speaking in January, 1775, in the House of Lords, Chatham 
said of the addresses and declarations that had emanated from the 
Continental Congress at Philadelphia, in the previous year: *• For 
myself, I must avow that in all my reading — and I have read 
Tliucydides and have studied and admired the master-states of 
the world — for solidity of reason, force of sagacity, and wisdom 
of conclusion under a complication of difficult circumstances, no 
body of men can stand in preference to the general congress at 
Philadelphia. The histories of Greece and Rome give us nothing 
equal to it."' 



BEGINNING OF WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 191 

rank. Massachusetts had added to the chronicles of her ear- 
hest historians a fine work by her schohirly Tory governor, 
Thomas Hutchinson ; an ambitious ecclesiastical history, 
the " Magnalia Christi Americana " of Cotton Mather ; a 
painstaking " Chronological History " by Thomas nistorl- 
Prince, and spirited Indian war narratives by Een- ^"^• 
jamin Church, Samuel Penhallow, and Samuel Niles. Vir- 
ginia and New York had found worthy historians, the former 
in Robert Beverley, William Byrd, and William Stith ; the 
latter in Chief Justice William Smith, who wrote provincial 
history from the Tory standpoint, and Cadwallader Colden, 
a fellow loyalist, to whom we owe the first history of the 
Five Nations of the Iroquois. Of lighter literature nothing 
of much value had been produced. 

Slavery and the Slave Trade. Slaves were still held in all 
the colonies ; but the employments for slave labor were really 
profitable in none of them except Maryland, Virginia, the 
Carolinas, and Georgia, and even there the system was rooted 
only in the tide-water and midland parts. It gained little 
footing in the mountainous western borders of the southern 
colonies, where large plantations were never formed. At the 
beginning of the Revolution there are supposed to 
nave been about 165,000 slaves in Virgmia, 110,000 tionof 

SltLVfiS 

in South Carolina, 80,000 in Maryland, 75,000 in 
North Carolina, 16,000 in Georgia, being 446,000 in those 
five provinces, against about 55,000 in the remaining eight. 
Of the latter number, 15,000 are estimated for New York, 
10,000 for Pennsylvania, 9000 for Delaware, and 7600 for 
New Jersey, leaving for the four New England colonies 
(Maine included in Massachusetts) some 13,400. Slavery 
had had more growth in New York than in the other northern 
colonies ; but even there it was rooted so slightly that gradual 
emancipation by law was adopted before the century came to 
its end. Quaker sentiment in Pennsylvania had al- Emancipa- 
ways condemned human bondage, and, as soon as the *^°"- 
province became free to act for itself, it took measures (1780) 



192 STATE OF THE COLONIES. 

for ending slavery within its bounds. In the same year Mas- 
sachusetts struck down the institution more summarily, by a 
declaration in its state constitution that all men are free, 
which, according to a judicial decision rendered soon after- 
ward, gave freedom at once to every slave. In the other 
parts of New England slavery was extinguished by acts of 
gradual emancipation, or died out naturally within the next 
few years. 

In several of the colonies, including Virginia, the importa- 
tion of slaves from Africa would have been stopped some 
time before they assumed independence, if royal authority had 
not interfered to prevent. The Virginia Assembly 

responsi- passed an act for that purpose in 1769, and the 
bility. ,..,,. , - 

governor vetoed it, m obedience to commands from 

the king. Several previous attempts to place a duty on the 
importation of slaves had been similarly annulled. Legisla- 
tion of the Massachusetts Assembly to stop the increase of 
slaves in the province was vetoed by Governor Hutchinson 
in 1771, and again by General Gage in 1774. In sugges- 
tions offered to the delegates sent from Virginia to the Con- 
tinental Congress of 1774, Jefferson gave prominence to this 
among the wrongs which the colonies had suffered at the 
hands of King George.^ In fact, the English government 
fostered slavery systematically in the colonies, for the increase 
of the slave trade, which was cherished as a principal source 
of national wealth. In making peace with Spain, by the 
.Tjjg treaty of Utrecht, in 17 13, it had exacted and ob- 

Assionto. tained a contract, called the Assiento, for the ex- 
clusive supplying of Spanish colonies with African slaves, and 

^ "There was a great and general dislike to the excessive im- 
portation of negroes, and . . . every attempt to prohibit or restrict 
that importation was rebuked and defeated by England. . . . The 
state governors were forbidden to give the necessary assent to any 
measure restricting it, and the English pursued this policy steadily 
to the very eve of the Revolution." Lecky, Hist, of Eng. in the. 
Eighteenth Century^ ii. ch. v. 



BEGINNINC; OF WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 193 

the traffic which that contract secured was enormous in ex- 
tent. Traders in the English colonies had their share of it, 
which was not small. Rhode Island and Massachusetts, 
especially, were engaged heavily in the pitiless trade, jj^^ jjng- 
and the greater part of the rum distilled from smug- {Je'sfave 
gled West India molasses went to buy captive ne- *^^*®- 
groes on the African coast, for sale to the English colonists 
of the south and to the West India colonies of France and 
Spain. Original responsibility for the great evil of slavery in 
America rests, therefore, not unevenly on England and the 
English colonies, north and south alike. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION AND WAR OF INDEPEND- 
ENCE. 1775-1783. 

107. Lexington and Concord. — " The Shot heard 
round the "World." April 19, 1775. Gage had orders 
to arrest both Samuel Adams and John Hancock, on the 
charge of high treason, and to send them to England for 
trial; but though they were daily within reach of the 
governor, he made no attempt to lay hands on them for 
weeks. At length the two specially offending patriots 
were reported to be visiting friends at Lexington, and 
Gage thought it possible to seize them in that quiet 
village without setting any dangerous tumult astir. At 
the same time the opportunity would be good for destroy- 
ing certain military stores which the patriots had col- 
lected at Concord, not far beyond. Accordingly, on the 
night of the i8th of April, 800 British troops were sent 
out from Boston, with great secrecy and silence, to 
surprise Lexington in its sleep. Everybody knows the 
thrilling story of what happened then : of the alert- 
ness of the Boston patriots ; of the effective plans of 
Warren for sending warnings into the country, whatever 
direction the troops might take ; of the signal lights 
Pan! from the North Church belfry, which told Paul 

Revere. Revere, at Charlestown, what way to ride ; of 
the effect with which he rode, rousing the farms and 
villages as he went ; of the wakening of Adams and 
Hancock and their quiet departure through the fields 



REVOLUTION AND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 195 

to Woburn ; of the first bloodshed of the War of Inde- 
pendence on Lexington Green, as the sun came up on 
the morning of Wednesday, the 19th of April, qjj Lexing- 
when a little company of minute men, who Aprn"!^ 
would not disperse at Major Pitcairn's com- ^'^'^^' 
mand, received the fire of the British advance ; of the 
fight at Concord, where 

" the embattled farmers stood, 
And fired the shot heard round the world ; " 

of the dreadful retreat of the exhausted soldiers of King 
George, through miles of country that swarmed pightat 
with maddened people, ambushed all along the Concord, 
road. The tragic incidents of that memorable day are fa- 
miliar to every American child. Before it ended, twenty- 




BOSTON, LEXINGTON, CONCORD, AND VICINITY. 

three towns had joined the fighting, and 93 Americans 
had fallen, wounded or killed, while the British had lost 

273- 

As the exciting tale of battle was borne swiftly in all 

directions, it found the major part of the people ready 



196 THE MAKING OF A NATION. 

everywhere to accept the gage of war that Great Britain 
had now thrown down. Minute men from all New Ene:- 
land were hurrying toward Boston before the next day's 
sun went down, and the end of the week found Gajre 
Boston beleaguered in the city by 1 3,000 resolute men. 
besieged. xhcy were poorly equipped in every way, and 
not provisioned at all ; they were little trained, except in 
the use of their muskets ; the only experience among 
their officers was that of men who had served in the 
" French and Indian War " of fifteen years before ; 
but they were bent on driving the British regulars out 
of Boston, and the British fleet out of the Bay. Israel 
Putnam commanded the Connecticut men, John Stark 
led those of New Hampshire, Nathanael Greene was 
colonel of a Rhode Island regiment, and General Artemas 
Ward, a veteran of the last war, much disabled in health, 
commanded the whole. 

108. Effect of the News. April-May, 1775. The 

spirit kindled in New England flamed up in every other 

colony as fast as news of the 19th of April sped west 

and south. New York heard of it on Sunday, and that 

same day there was a rising of the Sons of 

The news t -i . 1 • 1 - • n 

In New Liberty which practically swept the royal gov- 
ernment out of power. Arms, military stores, 
and provisions, destined for the British troops at Bos- 
ton, were seized ; possession was taken of the custom- 
house, and a committee of one hundred citizens was ap- 
pointed to take direction of public affairs. New Jersey 
took instant steps to assemble a provincial congress. At 
Philadelphia a great town meeting, on Tuesday, the 25th, 
agreed to defend their lives, their property, and their 
liberty ** with arms," and even a Quaker company was 
formed. In Maryland the freemen demanded and the 
governor surrendered the arms and ammunition of the 



KKVOT.UTION AND WAR OF INDEI^ENDENCE. 197 

l)r()vincc. Virginia was already ablaze with an excite- 
ment of its own ; for Governor Dunmore had carried off 
a quantity of gunpowder from the colony magazine, and 
the militia of Hanover, with Patrick Henry at their 
head, were starting for Williamsburg to dc- Virginia 
mar.d that it be restored. Before they reached *»»^°^s- 
the capital Dunmore paid for what he had taken, and 
they turned back ; but he provoked another rising soon 
after and fled, taking refuge on a man-of-war and acting 
as an enemy of the province from that time. South 
Carolina had not waited for a British act of violence 
before taking the attitude of war. On the 21st of April, 
a full fortnight before Charleston knew of what had 
happened at Lexington, the men of that town had laid 
hands on the royal arsenal and the public magazines, 
having appointed a committee of five, with Henry Lau- 
rens at their head, to place the colony in a state of 
defence. In North Carolina the popular demonstration 
at Newbern was such that the governor with- 

. Mecklen- 

drew to Fort Johnson and sent his wife to New burg De- 
York ; while the Scotch-Irish inhabitants of 
Mecklenburg County adopted resolutions which are 
claimed to have been the first demand for independence 
that was uttered by any assembly of people. 

109. Capture of Ticonderoga and Crown Point. 
May 10, 1775. As quickly as the slow travel of the 
time could bring it to them, the New luiglanders besieg- 
ing Gage at Boston had assurance of support from every 
]3ritish-American community except Quebec. Meantime 
they had been pushing operations of war outside of 
the siege. An expedition set on foot in Connecticut, 
but carried out mainly by hardy settlers of the Green 
Mountain region (then known as the " New Hampshire 
Grants," but soon afterward called Vermont), surprised 



iqS the making of a nation. 

the strong fort at Ticonderoga, on the morning of the 
loth of May. The '* Green Mountain Boys " who per- 
formed this fine exploit were led by Ethan Allen ; Bene- 
dict Arnold, of Connecticut, joining them as a volunteer. 
The surrender of Crown Point followed, and these two 
important captures gave the provincials more than two 
hundred cannon, with a quantity of ammunition and other 
stores. 

110. Second Continental Congress. — Appoint- 
ment of Washington to Chief Command. May-June, 
1775. The second Continental Congress opened its ses- 
sions at Philadelphia on the loth of May. Franklin, who 
had arrived from England only five days before, was now, 
with Dickinson, in the Pennsylvania delegation ; Samuel 
and John Adams had come again from Massachusetts, 
with the dignified John Hancock in their company ; 
Patriots Virginia had sent Washington again, with Lee, 
present. Henry, and Randolph, but Randolph was re- 
called very soon by duties in the colonial Assembly and 
Thomas Jefferson was delegated in his place ; Jay and 
Livingston from New York, Gadsden from South Car- 
olina, and other staunch patriots from the first Con- 
gress, were seated anew. Randolph was made president 
until called away ; then Hancock was honored with the 
place. 

The action of Congress still invited reconciliation. 
While adopting, on one hand, a calm declaration of " the 
causes and necessity for taking up arms," it addressed, 
on .the other hand, another petition to King George. At 
the same time it made common cause with New England 
in the hostilities already begun, by adopting the forces in 
arms, or to be in arms, as a ''Continental Army," assum- 
ing the direction of it and appointing its commander-in- 
chief. On the request of the Massachusetts delegation. 



REVOLUTION AND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 199 

George Washington, of Virginia, was so commissioned ; 

and by that inspired act the achievement of 

American independence and the successful tonap- 

foundino: of the federal republic of the United June 15, 

1775. 
States were assured. What Washington would 

be to the great revolutionary undertaking no man could 
have foreseen. He had given more promise of high mil- 
itary capacity, perhaps, than any other in the colonies 
who wore a sword, and he had won the perfect trust of 
all who knew him best ; but how little, after all, could 
any in that day have known of the unique greatness of 
the man ! As we look back now at the events of the 
history in which Washington's figure is so grand, we can- 
not imagine a successful outcome of the revolt, or a suc- 
cessful binding up of the colonies in one nation, without 
him. He was not the greatest of soldiers, he was not 
the greatest of statesmen; but he combined Thegreat- 
with perfection the qualities, both moral and washing- 
intellectual, that were needed for what he did. *°"' 
They produced in him a character so massive, so strong, 
so majestic, that it bore up the whole cause. 

Under the commander-in-chief, four major-generals, — 
Artemas Ward, Israel Putnam, Philip Schuyler, and 
Charles Lee, — with eight brigadier-generals, including 
Richard Montgomery, John Sullivan, and Nathanael 
Greene, were named. The appointment of Charles Lee, 
an English adventurer, unprincipled and worthless, was 
a grave mistake. 

Thus, in answer to a general expectation and desire, 
the Continental Congress took upon itself the conduct 
of whatever there should need to be of war. But, while 
assuming the responsibilities of the impending struggle, 
it assumed no power to enforce an order it might give, 
or authority to levy a dollar of taxation for the expenses 



200 THE MAKING OF A NATION. 

incurred. Its whole exercise of a nominal authority to 
direct the common action of the thirteen colonies was 
left dependent on the willingness of each provincial gov- 
ernment to be submissive to its advice. Professor von 
Hoist and other recent historians have maintained, with 
what seems to be sound reasoning, that, being a revolu- 
tionary body, in a revolutionary crisis, the Con- 

The missed • i /^ . 

opportunity tmcntal Consfrcss misrht properly have claimed 

of Congress. . ° b i^ f j 

and exercised all the functions of a national 
legislature, from the beginning, and would probably 
have been sustained by popular opinion in doing so. 
Instead of taking that strong, consistent course, it went 
only halfway. Consequently, the respect and defer- 
ence which the Congress commanded at the outset was 
lost, and state governments, when formed, became the 
only governments felt and known in reality by the people, 
who struggled through their war of independence with 
nothing that could be called a governing head. 

111. Bunker Hill. June 17, 1776. While continental 
sanction was being given to the New England proceedings 
of war, those proceedings were acquiring more impor- 
tance from fresh events. Reinforcements had raised the 
British force in Boston to about 10,000 men, whereupon 
General Gage prepared for a movement to extend his 
lines. The provincial leaders learned his intention, and 
undertook to frustrate it by sending Colonel Prescott, 
with about 1200 men, in the night of the i6th of June, 
to occupy and fortify a rise of ground near Charlestown 
called Bunker Hill. When Prescott reached the ground 
Breed's ^^ thought it bcst to advance a little farther, to 
^^^^- the next eminence, called Breed's Hill, and 

there his men were set silently to work. The British 
discovered nothing till the morning of the 17th ; then 
their frigates in the harbor opened fire on the unfinished 



REVOLUTION AND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 20I 



work, without much effect. At noon they had deter- 
mined to storm the rising fortification, which endangered 
them if the besiegers should be able to bring heavy guns 
into place. About 
3000 veteran sol- 
diers were landed 
near Chariest own, 
under General 
Howe, and led in 
two columns, one 
against the en- 
trenchment on 
Breed's Hill, the 
other against a 
supporting body 




of Americans, who plan of the battle of bunker hill. 
had taken position 

on the flank of the latter, behind a rail fence. Both 
columns were repulsed, with terrific loss to the assailants, 
the Americans having reserved their fire until the British 
came within fifty yards. After some time, during which 
the village of Charlestown was set on fire by shells from 
the fleet, a second assault was made, with the same 
result. By this time the Americans had nearly exhausted 
their ammunition, and none came to them, though sent 
for again and again ; nor did they receive reinforcements, 
except as many volunteers came over to join them during 
the day. Had the needed men and gunpowder The third 
come, the third assault, made late in the after- ^^s*^*- 
noon, would probably have failed. As it was, when the 
defenders of the hill had emptied their powder horns, 
their clubbed muskets were poor weapons against the 
bayonet, and they gave way. 

VoY their victory, if it was a victory, the British had 



202 THE MAKING OF A NATION. 

paid a fearful price, losing 1054 in killed and wounded, 
or more than a third of their force, and the proportion of 
officers struck down was unusually large. The Ameri- 
cans lost 449, about one fourth of the number engaged ; 
and among the killed was the noble Dr. Warren, who 
had joined the force on the hill as a volunteer. I lis death 
was a heavy loss to the American cause. But the battle 
gave more encouragement to the losers than to the win- 
ners of the irround on which it was foujiht. 

112. Washington's Task. — Expeditions to Canada. 
July-December, 1775. On the 2d of July, two weeks 
after the battle of Bunker Hill, General Washington ar- 
rived at Cambridge and took command. There were 
16,000 men in the force around Boston, all New Eng- 
landers ; but 3000 came soon from Pennsylvania, Vir- 
The Ameri- S^'^^^'^y '^^^^^ Maryland, including a famous company 
can army, ^f Virginian sharpshooters, with Daniel Morgan 
at their head. The 19,000 then assembled formed an 
army in numbers alone ; of real organization it had none. 
The men had been enlisted by different committees, for 
different short terms, with great uncertainty as to the 
sources from which pay or even food would come. They 
were accoutred in all sorts of fashions, and sheltered in 
all sorts of makeshift ways. Such were the hard condi- 
tions of the task of war which Washington had under- 
taken to direct ; and, though they slowly settled into 
something better, there was always such a chaos of di- 
verse authorities behind him as would have broken down 
any courage and constancy less invincible than his. 

Months of preparation were needed before Washing- 
ton could venture any serious attempt to drive 
Into the British out of Boston ; but while he toiled 

Canada. i • i t • • ^ 

at his task, two expeditions were sent into Can- 
ada, for the capture of Montreal and Quebec. One, led 



REVOLUTION AND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 203 

from Ticonclero<;a l)y General Montgomery, took tlie 
former town (November 12) ; the second, commanded by 
Benedict Arnold, after great sufferings in a march through 
the Maine wilderness, was joined by Montgomery in a 
daring assault on the walls of Quebec (December 31) 
which nearly had success ; but Montgomery fell, his men 
wavered, and were driven back. Morgan and his com- 
pany, who formed part of the expedition, had actually 
entered the town, and were captured; Arnold received a 
severe wound. 

113. Ripening of the Public Mind for Independence. 
1775-1776. In these months a great change in public 
feeling had been wrought by news from luigland. King 
George had launched a proclamation, in violent terms, 
against the " open and avowed rebellion " in America, and 
had contracted with certain despotic (lerman princes for 
the hiring of 20,000 soldiers, Hessians and Hessians 
others, to be employed for the suppression of Khfg^^ 
the revolt. The effect of this last-named mea- ^^'"^«°- 
sure, "when known, was to swell the number of i)atriots 
who were ready to renounce allegiance to the king ; and 
the Congress at Philadelphia began to take steps which 
led plainly that way. To Virginia, South Carolina, and 
New Hampshire, whose royal governors had fled from 
their posts, it gave advice that they frame govern- 
ments for themselves. It recommended that South 
Carolina should seize British ships in its ports ; that 
Virginia should take arms against Dunmore, 

1 1 • r Tvr r II i rr RoCOmmOU- 

who was gathermg forces at Norlolk and offer- dationsby 

Congress. 

ing freedom to slaves ; that New York should 
place its troublesome governor, Tryon, under arrest. It 
appointed a committee to correspond with foreign powers. 
It was moving steadily toward a position in which inde- 
pendence would have to be declared. 



204 THE MAKING OF A NATION. 

In October the New York governor, Tryon, took ref- 
uge on a British ship of war. Dunmore and the Virgin- 
ians fought a battle at Great Bridge, near Norfolk, in 
December, and the colonists took the town. It was bom- 
barded soon afterward by a British ship and destroyed. 
Early in the year 1776 information came of an act of Par- 
liament authorizing the capture and confiscation of all 
American ships and cargoes, and the forcible enlistment 
in the British navy of captured crews. At nearly the 
paine's Same time a remarkable pamphlet, entitled 
jt^uwy!' "Common Sense," which set forth the argu- 
^^^^' ments for independence in a striking way, was 

published by Thomas Paine, an Englishman, lately ar- 
rived in Philadelphia. The effect of Paine's pamphlet, 
helped by the new act of Parliament, was to ripen the 
sentiment in favor of independence very fast. 

114. Boston given up by the British. March 17, 
1776. Early in March, 1776, the preparations of Wash- 
ington for a decisive movement at Boston were complete. 
What he had to do is indicated by one passage in a letter 
which he wrote to the president of Congress a few 
months before : " To maintain a post within 
ton's pre- muskct-shot of the enemy for six months to- 

paxatlon. 

gether without powder," he wi'ote, "and at the 
same time to disband one army and recruit another, 
within that distance of twenty odd British regiments, is 
more, probably, than ever was attempted ; " but he ac- 
complished the feat. The enemy knew nothing of his 
desperate straits until too late. At last he had pow- 
der enough, guns enough (dragged from Ticonderoga), 

tools enough, men enough, for a venture ; and 
Dorchester on the night of March 4 he seized and fortified 

Dorchester Heights, which so commanded Bos- 
ton harbor that his Ticonderoga cannon would drive out 



REVOLUTION AND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 205 

the British fleet. Howe, who had superseded Gage, or- 
dered an attack on the new works, but thought better of 
it, and finally gave notice that he would quit the town if 
permitted to go in peace, but would lay it in ashes if fired 
on ; and so, by tacit agreement, the besieged army and 
fleet, with 900 of their Tory friends, made an undisturbed 
retreat to Halifax, leaving behind them a rich prize of 
military stores. 

115. War in North Carolina. — Demands for a De- 
claration of Independence. February- June, 1776. An 
exciting clash of war had occurred meantime in North 
Carolina, where British agents had enlisted some 1600 
Scotch Highlanders and started them toward the coast, 
to meet expected expeditions from Boston and from Ire- 
land, and to take part in a grand campaign. But the 
march of the Scotchmen was stopped at Moore's Creek 
(February 27) by North Carolina militia, who put them 
to rout. This battle so roused the province that 
the force sent from Boston, under Sir Henry Moore's 

Gr66lc Foil- 

Clinton, dared not land, when it arrived, but ruary27, 

1776. 

waited in Albemarle Sound for the fleet from 
Ireland until May. Before that time, the energetic Caro- 
linians had elected a provincial congress, which met and 
(April 12) empowered the delegates of the colony in 
the Continental Congress " to concur with the delegates 
in the other colonies in declaring independency and 
forming foreign alliances." In Georgia a provincial con- 
gress had already, in February, instructed its delegates 
substantially to the same effect ; while South Carolina, 
on the 26th of March, established the constitution and 
organized the government of an independent state. 

The lead which the southernmost colonies had thus 
taken in pronouncing for independence was now fol- 
lowed quickly. Rhode Island spoke next, on the 4th of 



206 THE MAKING OF A NATION. 

May. On the loth of the same month the General 
Court of Massachusetts (reestablished, accord- 

fPJiQ colo- 

nies speak- mg to the old charter, in the previous summer) 
called on the towns to express themselves on 
the subject, and they did so by their town meetings that 
month. Virginia, in a convention specially chosen, voted 
unanimously for independence on the 14th of May ; and 
the same convention, on the 12th of June, issued a fa- 
mous ''Declaration of Rights," setting forth 
Declaration that " all men are by nature equally free and 

^^ ^" independent," and that "all power is vested in 
and consequently derived from the people." Before the 
end of June every one of the remaining colonies, except 
New York, had declared for independence, or empowered 
its delegates in Congress to act in unison with the rest. 

The delay in New York was caused by the strength 
of the Tory party there, animated by an expectation 
that the whole force commanded by General Howe, now 
increased by Hessian arrivals, would soon be knocking 
at the gates of the Hudson River valley. In the mili- 
tary view, immense importance attached to the posses- 
sion of that river and valley, which parted New England 
Washing- fi'o^ the colonies farther south, and which 
Y^k^Aprii, would, if held by the British, unite them with 
^''^^- Canada and with the Six Nations of Indians, 

whose savage alliance they were trying to engage. To 
secure New York, Washington had hastened thither with 
his army, as quickly as possible after Boston was re- 
lieved ; but his command had dwindled to about 8000 
men, and Howe was coming from Halifax with a vastly 
greater force. 

116. Independence declared. July 4, 1776. On the 
4th of July, 1776, — most memorable of all days in 
American history, — the step was taken which separated 



REVOLUTION AND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 20/ 

the English in America from the English in Britain po- 
litically, and a new great nation was born. Congress 
had prepared for it three weeks before, by appointing a 
committee to draft the contemplated Declaration of In- 
dependence, and that immortal manifesto was Author of 
composed by Thomas Jefferson, whose broad StionoMn- 
understanding of political principles and fine ^^p®^^®^'^®- 
gifts of expression had been shown in some notable ex- 
amples before. As the Declaration came from Jefferson's 
pen, with a few verbal changes suggested by Franklin 
and John Adams, it was reported to Congress on the 2d 
of July, and adopted, after slight amendments, on the 
4th, but was not signed till some days later, when it had 
been duly engrossed. 

The resistance to Great Britain was now no longer a 
rebellion, but the struggle of a new nation for its life. 

Congress had already recommended that governments 
based on the " authority of the people " be established in 
every colony, and seven such independent gov- 

. . . . , ^ . Formation 

ernments, either provisional or permanent in of state 
constitution, had been organized before the gen- ments, 
eral declaration of independence was put forth. 
These were in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, South 
Carolina, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Virginia, and New 
Jersey. Delaware and Pennsylvania adopted state con- 
stitutions in the next September ; Maryland followed in 
November ; North Carolina in December ; Georgia in 
February, and New York in April of 1777. The "thir- 
teen colonies " had then completed their transformation 
into American States. 

117. British Repulse at Charleston. June 28, 1776. 
Almost simultaneously with news of the Declaration of 
Independence, a cheering message from Charleston was 
carried through the land. Sir Henry Clinton had been 



208 THE MAKING OF A NATION. 

joined by the squadron from Ireland, which brought fresh 
forces, and had attacked the fortifications in Charleston 
harbor on the 28th of June. The main defence of the 

harbor was a rude fort, built hastily of palmetto 
Moultrie's logs on Sullivan's Island, by Colonel Moultrie, 

who held it, with 1200 men. General Charles 
Lee, sent to take command in the south, had scorned 
this work and given orders for its abandonment ; but 
Moultrie, sustained by President Rutledge, of the pro- 
vincial congress, refused to withdraw. The result was 
that the valiant Moultrie and his force repulsed the at- 
tack, losing but 37 in killed and wounded, while the loss 
of the assailants was 205. 

118. Battle of Long Island. — Retreat of Washing- 
ton from New York and through New Jersey. August- 
December, 1776. The months that followed these good 
tidings were filled with disheartening events. By the 
end of July not less than 30,000 British troops and a 
powerful fleet were assembled on Staten Island and in 
New York Bay, General William Howe and Admiral 
Lord Howe in command. They were busily preparing 
New York ^° attack the city, which Washington must try 
captured. ^q defend against them, with a militia force 
now increased to some 20,000 men. On Long Island 
he had fortified Brooklyn Heights, which commanded 
New York, and half of his little army, stationed there, 
was overwhelmed by 20,000 of Howe's veterans on the 
27th of August, losing 1000 prisoners, besides 400 in 
wounded and killed. The remainder of the American 
force, hemmed in by the enemy, was rescued with skilful- 
ness by Washington and brought across the river, on the 
night of the 29th. The loss of the Heights made New 
York no longer tenable, and Howe entered the city on 
the J 5th of September, the Americans retreating north- 



REVOLUTION AND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 209 



ward, fighting stubbornly 
as they drew back to a 
strong position, up the river, 
among the hills. At the 
same time they were threat- 
ened from the north, the 
British commander in Can- 
ada, Sir Guy 

^ 1 , 1 . Arnold 

Carleton, havmg checks 

. , ,1 . British 

attempted an m- on Lake 

1 r Ghamplain. 

vasion by way or 

Lake Champlain ; but Ben- 
edict Arnold, in command 
at Ticonderoga, got a 
fleet of small vessels afloat 
and checked his advance, 
though defeated, in a stub- 
born fight (October 11). 

Hostile criticism began 
now to assail the sorely 
tried commander-in-chief ; 
envious rivals intrigued 
against him ; ignorant men 
in Congress in- mtrigues 
terfered with fjjjiig- 
his plans. Fort *°"' 
Washington, on the Hud- 
son, was lost in conse- 
quence (November 16), 
with a garrison of nearly 
3000 men, and the 
wretched impostor. Gen- 
eral Charles Lee, now back 
from the south, had en- 




T L A. N T 1 
OCEAN 



THE FIELD OF WAR ON THE HUDSON. 



210 THE MAKING OF A NATION. 

couragement to disobey orders, keei^ing- 7000 of the 
meagre American force away from the commander's con- 
trol at a most critical time. But, ha}ipily for the American 
cause, Lee put himself, presently, in the way of being 
caught by the British, and one serious cause of mischief 
was removed for a time. Washington had then crossed 
the Hudson and retreated through New Jersey, to a 
point beyond the Delaware, pursued by Lord Cornwallis, 
with British and Hessian troops. The short terms ol 
so many of his militia-men had expired that hardly 30CX) 
remained, and most of those would be entitled to dis- 
charge at the end of the year. There was no money for 
their pay, and no public credit on which to raise funds. 
Washington and some of his officers borrowed what they 
could on the pledge of their own estates. *' These are 
"The times ^^""^ times," wrote Thomas Paine, "that try 
men's^ men's souls." None but the stoutest-hearted 
souls." could feel hopeful of the cause. Some thou- 
sands in New York and New Jersey accepted Howe's 
offer of British protection, swearing allegiance to the 
king. Philadelphia expected nothing but a speedy inva- 
sion, even Congress giving way to panic and adjourning 
to Baltimore, December 12. 

119. The situation changed. — Washington turns 
upon his pursuers. December 25, 1776-January 3, 
1777. In this dark hour of the war there came a sudden 
revelation to his despairing countrymen of the extraordi- 
nary powers of the man who upheld their cause. Lee's 
force, greatly dwindled, had reached him at last, and 
Schuyler, commanding in northern New York, had sent 
him a few men, so that, by Christmas eve, he had about 
6000 in hand With these he resolved to strike at the 
enemy, who were feeling secure, in lines scattered along 
the eastern side of the Delaware, where they waited for 



REVOLUTION AND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 211 






.0 

\CnnHtilu1iim 






< Y 



the river to freeze. Having seized every boat within 
reach, Washington planned to send his little army across 
the river in three divisions ; but 
only one of the three overcame 
the great difficulties caused by 
ice, and that was the one which 
he personally led. With 2400 men 
he reached the eastern bank of the 
Delaware on Christmas morning, 
marched nine miles to Trenton, 
drenched with the sleet 
of a northeast storm, and 
surprised and captured 
1000 Hessians, besides a 
large quantity of arms and 
stores. This was only the 
beginning of his new cam- 
paign. V>y the 2d of Jan- 
uary he had es- 
tablished his 
army near Tren- 







(bTATfc'O 

If /^ , ir Ocean 




ton, with 
the little 
creek As- 
sunpink be- 
tween him- 
self and 
Corn wall is, 
who came 
to attack 
him there in 
force. The 

latter was now sure, as he expressed it, that he had ** run 
down the old fox ; " but Washington, leaving his camp- 
fires burning and a few men working at entrenchments in 



TIIK SEAT ()!•• WAR HIH^WKKN TUl-: HUOSON AND 
DIU.AWAHIC. 



212 THE MAKING OF A NATION. 

front, slipped away during the night and marched rapidly 
toward Princeton, where the British had collected stores. 
Near Princeton he routed a body of 2000 troops, taking 
Batueof more prisoners, and then, entering the town, 
jaimSy% gathered up more of the enemy's ammunition 
■'•^^^" and arms. From Princeton he moved on to 

the heights around Morristown, while Cornwallis fell 
back to New Brunswick. Substantially all that the Brit- 
ish had gained since Washington began his retreat 
through New Jersey was recovered by this brilliant cam- 
paign of ten days. 

These successes were immensely helpful to the Amer- 
ican cause, both at home and abroad. It was now recog- 
nized in foreign circles that the crude American army 
had a great soldier and a man of great character at its 
head. France was more than willing to give secret aid 
against England, if her aid was not likely to be thrown 
away. She had contributed a million dollars, even before 
independence was declared. Three commissioners from 
Congress — Franklin, Arthur Lee, and Silas Deane — 
were now in Paris, negotiating for more open support. 
The fame of Franklin gave him an extraordinary influ- 
Heipfrom Guce, and the negotiation was helped greatly 
France. ^^ Washington's late campaign. Two millions 
of livres (about $400,000) was promised yearly by the 
French government ; several cargoes of stores were sent 
over ; the authorities winked at the fitting out of priva- 
teers in French ports ; and not a few French gentlemen 
prepared to offer their services, among them the young 
Marquis de Lafayette. Some secret assistance was also 
obtained from Spain. 

120. Burgoyne's Invasion. — Capture of his Army. 
— Undeserved Credit to General Gates. July-Octo- 
ber, 1777. During the remainder of the winter of 1777 



REVOLUTION AND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 213 



no military movements of note were undertaken on either 
side. But the next season brought important events. The 
British government had ordered a 



formidable invasion of northern 
New York from Canada, to secure 
the valleys of the Hudson and the 
Mohawk throughout their length. 
It was made on two lines, one by 
way of Lake Champlain, the other 
from Lake Ontario to the Mohawk, 
thence to a junction with the first. 
The main movement, under Gen- 
eral Burgoyne, began with success. 
The Americans were easily forced 
out of Ticonderoga, and beaten in 
a battle at Hubbardton, early in 
July. They drew back to Fort 
Edward, and then to Stillwater, 
near Saratoga, obstructing the 
way to delay Burgoyne. Before 
he could reach Stillwater, large 
numbers of the militia and un- 
trained farmers of western New 
England and eastern New York 
were joining the American forces 
there, or gathering on the flanks of his march. 

The invasion caused unusual excitement, for the reason 
that the British had taken savages into their service, pro- 
fessing to be able to keep them under control. This em- 
ployment of Indians was disapproved by many 
British officers, and denounced in England, but allies oi the 

° . British. 

was insisted upon by the ministers of the king. 
Feeling on the subject was heightened by a pathetic tra- 
gedy, occurring in July, when a beautiful young woman. 




ROUTE OF BURGOYNE'S 
INVASION. 



214 THE MAKING OF A NATION. 

Jenny McCrea, betrothed to an officer in the invading 
army, and on her way to join him for marriag'e, was killed 
and scalped by some of Burgoyne's savage scouts. A 
fiery rage was kindled everywhere by this dreadful story 
as it ran through the land. 

The serious trouble of Burgoyne began on the i6th of 

August, when looo of his German troops, sent with lOO 

Indians to seize militia stores at Bennins^ton, 

Battle ol & ' 

Benning- Vermont, were surrounded and most of them 

ton, Au- 
gust 16, captured, after a fierce fight. This was mainly 

the exploit of a crowd of farmers in their shirt- 
sleeves, commanded by General Stark. Soon afterward, 
Burgoyne had news of the disastrous failure of the expe- 
dition from Lake Ontario, which Colonel St. Leger was 
leading to join his own. St. Leger had been resisted 
with obstinacy at Fort Stanwix (now the city of Rome), 
near the headwaters of the Mohawk, and had fought a 
hard battle at Oriskany (August 6) with Sod of the local 
militia, whose commander, Colonel Herkimer, receiv^ed 
St. Leger's ^ rnortal wound in the fight. Then, a fortnight 
laiiuie. later, reports came to him of the approach of a 
body of troops from the main American army, and exag- 
gerated stories were told him of disaster to Burgoyne. 
Already discouraged, he now became panic-stricken, and 
fled from his camp before Fort Stanwix ^ (August 22), 
abandoning everything, pursued by even his own faith- 
less Indians, and losing all but a small remnant of his 
force. 

* On the 14th of June, 1777, Congress had adopted a design for 
the flag of the " United States of America," consisting of thirteen 
alternate red and white stripes, with a blue field containing white 
stars in the corner. The first military use of the flag is said to have 
been made during this siege of Fort Stanwix, where one was impro- 
vised out of a red petticoat, a white shirt, and an officer's blue cloak. 



REVOLUTION AND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 21$ 

Burgoyne was then in a desperate situation. The mi- 
Htia on his flanks, in Vermont, under General Lincohi, 
were breaking his communications and cutting off his 
suppHes. He heard nothing from General Howe, who 
had been expected to move up the Hudson, from New 
York. By the middle of September he had no alternative 
but to fight his way through, without help, if he could. 
Having crossed to the western side of the Hudson, he 
attacked the Americans in their strong position near Still- 
water, on Bemis Heights, September 19, and Battles on 
again October 7, both battles being fought He^hts, 
on nearly the same ground, known as Free- igfoSober 
man's Farm. Both attacks were repulsed, and, ^' ■'■^^^" 
being entirely hemmed in at Saratoga, his army reduced 
from 10,000 to less than 6000 men, with no source of 
supplies, Burgoyne surrendered, October 17. He sur- 
rendered on terms which promised permission to his 
army to return home, but Congress would not allow the 
promise to be fulfilled. 

The credit for this most telling blow to British hopes 
was won without being deserved by General Horatio 
Gates, who had persuaded Congress to appoint him to 
supersede General Schuyler in command of the northern 
forces, and who reached the field on the igth 

r A r T^ » r 1 1 11 , Unmerited 

of August, alter Burgoyne s fate had really been credit to 
sealed. The honors of the fighting in both bat- 
tles belonged to Benedict Arnold and Daniel Morgan ; 
but the whole apparent glory of the defeat and capture 
of Burgoyne settled at once on Gates, and he began to 
aspire to Washington's place. He was an accomplished 
intriguer, and Congress, which meddled constantly with 
the military commands, offered a good field for that kind 
of work. 

121. Why and how General Howe was kept from 



2l6 THE MAKING OF A NATION. 

meeting Burgoyne. August-October, 1777. Why Howe 
made no move northward to meet Burgoyne must now be 
told. He was supposed to have had orders to do so, but 
the orders were pigeon-holed in London by a careless 
minister and never sent. Free, therefore, to act on his 
own judgment, he planned a new movement against Phil- 
adelphia, expecting to finish it before Burgoyne would 
need his help. He had a splendid army, of more than 
17,000 men, while Washington, in New Jersey, had but 
half that number. The latter could not save Philadel- 
phia, but he could make the road to it long and the travel 
slow. He so manoeuvred his little force that the British 
general, after trying for nearly three weeks to make his 
movement by land, gave up the attempt, and took the 
route by sea. August was nearly ended when he landed 

Battle of his army at the head of Chesapeake Bay. Wash- 
Brandy- . "^ •' 
wine, Sep- ington had moved down to confront him, taking 

temberll, ° ^ 

1777. a strong position on Brandywine Creek, with 

his force increased to about 1 1,000. The Americans were 
outflanked and forced back, in the battle that ensued 
(September 11) ; but they had hindered the British ad- 
vance, and they continued to hinder it for a fortnight 
more until the 26th, when Howe's troops entered Phila- 
delphia, and the sittings of Congress were transferred to 
York. 

Within a week after the British occupation of Philadel- 
Battieoi phia, Washington had planned an audacious at- 
SwS.^octo- ^^ck on the headquarters of their force, in the 
i)er4,i777. g^burb of Gcrmantown, which he executed in 
the early morning of October 4, very nearly with suc- 
cess. But a heavy fog caused confusion and collisions 
between different columns of the attacking party and 
spoiled a promising attempt. The Americans retreated 
with heavy loss. 



REVOLUTION AND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 21/ 

122. Intriguing for Gates, to supplant Washington. 
— The ** Conway Cabal." November, 1777. On the 

surface of things, Washington had scored nothing but a 
record of defeats in this year's campaign, and 
Gates had performed the grand exploit of the oi wash- 
war. Hence shallow lookers-on, in and out of 
Congress, became contemptuous again of the great sol- 
dier, and began to call for the intriguing wearer of stolen 
plumes to be put in chief command. Congress had lost 
many of its ablest and noblest men : Franklin had been 
sent to the mission in France, Patrick Henry was called 
home to be governor, Jefferson to sit in the legislature 
of Virginia, Rutledge to be chief magistrate of South 
Carolina, and Jay to assist in framing a constitution for 
New York. An increasing pettiness of character ap- 
peared in the remaining body, and provincial jealousies 
cropped out in it more and more. 

The most serious danger to the American cause arose 
from the encouragement that Congress gave to intrigu- 
ing officers like Lee and Gates. In the fall of 1777 the 
scheming for the latter was carried on actively by a fac- 
tion in which one General Conway was conspic- 
uous, and which got the name of the "Conway "conway 
Cabal." It succeeded so far as to bring about, 
in November, the appointment of Gates to the presidency 
of a " Board of War," which had power to interfere seri- 
ously with the plans of the commander-in-chief. But the 
mean character of the conspirators was betrayed by 
their own conduct, while the dignity and noble spirit of 
Washington were impressively revealed. The heart of 
the people went out to him with increased admiration 
and trust ; his detractors were scorned. 

123. The Winter at Valley Forge. — Suffering of the 
Army. — State of the Country. December, 1777-May, 



2l8 • THE MAKING OF A NATION. 

1778. To watch the British forces in Philadelphia and 
make his own as safe as possible, Washington chose a 
position at Valley Forge, on the Schuylkill, about twenty- 
vauey One miles from the city, where he established 
^o^«e- winter quarters from December until May. The 
sufferings of the troops in that dreadful winter, and the 
heroic patience with which they were borne, have been 
described many times. The soldiers were sheltered well, 
in log huts that they built, but every need of clothing 
and food was ill-supplied. In one report to Congress, 
when remonstrated with for going into winter quarters, 
Washington wrote: "We have this day no less than 
2898 men in camp unfit for duty because they are bare- 
foot and otherwise naked. . . . Numbers still are obliged 
to sit all night by fires." This dreadful state of want in 
the army was due in part to faults of organization and 
management, which Congress would not reform, and in 
part to the lack of a central government having credit or 
power to tax. Congress had borrowed to the extent of 
its ability, and it had issued paper money (called 

nentai cur- *' Continental currency ") based on no substan- 
rency." . , . •' ' 

tial security, and not, of course, redeemable in 

coin, until its bills were losing all their nominal worth. 

In different degrees, the States had done the same. The 

financial situation of the country, burdened with the war, 

and with most of its commerce cut off, was very grave. 

In this trying winter two friends who had come from 

abroad to give help to the young republic were a source 

of great cheer and support to the commander-in-chief. 

One was the youthful Lafayette, who won Washington's 

affections almost as a son ; the other was the 

andsteu- Baron Steuben, a hi^^hly trained officer from 
ben. 

the Prussian army of Frederick the Great, to 

whom Congress gave the office of inspector-general, and 



REVOLUTION AND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 219 

who imparted a new quality to the army by the disci- 
pline he taught and inspired. At this time, too, a long in- 
timacy of friendship was being knitted between Alexander 
Washington and young Alexander Hamilton, Hamilton, 
who had come to the general's staff in the previous March. 

124. Treaty of Alliance with France. — Peace Over- 
tures from England. February- June, 1778. Before 
the winter ended, an event of great importance and long 
hoped for was realized by the signing (February 6, i y'/^) 
of a treaty of alliance with France. France recognized 
the independence of the American States and pledged 
open support to them, the States agreeing on their part 
to make no peace with England till their independence 
was achieved. A year later (April, 1779) Spain joined 
the alliance, under a treaty with France, but not with the 
States. 

The first effect of this alliance was the passage (Feb- 
ruary) of two acts by the British Parliament, making 
conciliatory overtures to the States. One repealed the 
Tea Act and the act which nullified the Massa- 
chusetts charter, declaring, further, that Parlia- of the 
ment would not exercise its right to levy taxes 
in the American colonies ; the other provided for the 
sending of commissioners to America to treat for peace. 
The second effect was a declaration of war (March 13) 
between Great Britain and France. 

The offered concessions were insufficient and came 
too late. Most people in England could see that this 
was so, and a demand arose for Lord Chatham at the 
head of the government, with power to make some hon- 
orable peace. Even King George might not Death of 
have ventured to resist this demand ; but Chat- SJ^y ii™' 
ham was stricken (April 7) with a mortal ill- ^'^'^^' 
ness, while speaking in the House of Lords against any 



220 THE MAKING OF A NATION. 

consent to American independence, and died on the nth 
of the following month. Lord North's commissioners 
came to America in June, but were told plainly that 
nothing less than an acknowledgment of the independ- 
ence of the States would receive consideration. 

125. British Evacuation of Philadelphia. — Battle 
of Monmouth. — Treachery of Charles Lee. June, 
1778. The British gained nothing from the possession 
of Philadelphia, and Sir Henry Clinton, who displaced 
Howe in May, was ordered to evacuate that city and 
concentrate his forces at New York. His rear-guard 
marched out on the i8th of June, and Washington, 
breaking camp, moved instantly in pursuit. On the 
night of the 27th the American army, about equal in 
numbers to Clinton's, had arrived within reach of the 
latter, in an advantageous position near Monmouth Court 
House, New Jersey, and prepared to attack. Unfortu- 
nately, the treacherous General Charles Lee, lately freed 
from captivity by exchange, was in command of the 
advance. It is now known that Lee, while a prisoner at 
New York, gave information and advice to Howe ; but 
that treason was not discovered till long afterward, and 
Washington seems to have been obliged to restore the 
scoundrel to his command when he came back. The 
result was a new piece of treachery, which nearly caused 
a calamitous overthrow of Washington's plans. Instead 
of attacking the enemy on the morning of the 28th, as 
he was directed to do, Lee gave bewildering orders, 
throwing his divisions into confusion, and finally com- 
Battieof manded a retreat. Lafayette, serving under 
jtSjT^' ^^^f ^^^^ ^ hurried report to Washington of 
1778. what was being done, and the commander ar- 

rived on the scene in time to stop the retreat, restore 
order, re-form a line of battle, under fire, and repel what 



REVOLUTION AND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 221 

had now become a British instead of an American at- 
tack. This was so splendidly done, showing such dis- 
cipline and such generalship, that the battle of Mon- 
mouth had the effect of a victory, though the object 
aimed at was not attained. 

The wrath poured by Washington on Lee, in a few 
blasting words, was a revelation of fierce temper kept 
usually in subjugation by a strong self-command. The 
culprit, ordered to the rear, was court-martialed and 
leniently deprived of command for a year, but afterward 
dismissed from the army, and did mischief no more. 

126. Washington again guarding the Hudson. 
1778-1779. Clinton and his army made their way to 
New York, and Washington stood on guard again by 
the Hudson River, to keep the British from breaking 
communications between New England and the other 
States. From the beginning to the end of the war, that 
was his vitally important task, on which all other cam- 
paigning must depend. He now hoped to trap the 
enemy in New York, with the help of a French fleet 
and French troops ; but when the fleet came, in July, its 
largest vessels could not cross the bar, and the prenchai- 
project was given up. Count d'Estaing, the NovenSer' 
French commander, then joined in an attack ^'^'^^' 

on the British at Newport, which, outside of New York, 
was their sole foothold in the thirteen States ; but the 
undertaking failed. 

127. Tory and Indian Raids on the Frontier. — Sul- 
livan's Expedition to Western New York. 1778- 
1781. Extensive operations of war in the Northern 
States were now given up by the British military au- 
thorities, who turned their attention to the south ; but 
a purely revengeful and vindictive warfare against fron- 
tier settlements in New York and Pennsylvania was 



222 THE MAKING OF A NATION. 

carried on by Tories and savages in British pay. Tory 
inhabitants of the New York border, driven from their 
homes, had gathered in the neighborhood of Fort Ni- 
agara, both in Canada and in western New York. The 
Mohawk Indians went with them, and the Senecas and 
The Butlers Cayugas were their allies. Numerous raids by 
and Brant. Tory rangers and Indians were made from the 
Niagara region, on the border settlements within reach, 
the active leaders being Colonel John Butler, his son 
Walter, and the Mohawk chieftain, Thayendanegea, or 
Joseph Brant. There were fearful atrocities committed 
in some of these raids, most horribly in the valley of 
Wyoming, northeastern Pennsylvania, where 
and Cherry Butlcr's ranojers and a band of Senecas de- 

Valley mas- 

sacres, stroyed a Connecticut settlement in July, 1778. 
vemher, Hardly Icss infamous was the destruction of a 

1778. •' 

settlement in Cherry Valley, New York, in 
November of the same year, by Tories and Indians 
under Walter Butler and Brant. Formerly Brant was 
held chiefly accountable for the savagery of this border 
warfare, but historical investigation has cleared him of 
the charge. He appears to have been more civilized 
than most of the white men with whom he served. He 
was not present at Wyoming, and his warriors at Cherry 
Valley are said to have had little or no hand in the 
butchery that was done. In excuse for the Butlers it is 
said that they could not restrain their Indian allies ; but 
they gave opportunities to the savages which they knew 
would be improved. 

To check this barbaric warfare, General Sullivan, 
with 5000 men, was sent by Washington, in the summer 
of 1779, to ravage the country of the hostile tribes, and 
to drive the Tories from their stronghold on the Niagara. 
After one engagement near Elmira (formerly called 



REVOLUTION AND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 223 

Newtown), where 1500 British troops, Tory rangers, and 
Indians were defeated with heavy slaughter, SulUvan's 
forces swept over the lands of the Cayugas and Senecas, 
in the lake region of central New York and Qenerai 
in the fertile valley of the Genesee, destroying suiuvan. 
villages and corn-fields, with such effect that those tribes 
never recovered their strength. But Fort Niagara was 
not reached, and a dreadful harrying of the Mohawk val- 
ley and other border regions went on through 1780 and 
1781. 

128. Conquest of the Northwest by George Rogers 
Clark. 1778-1779. A more important expedition into 
the wilderness of the west had been undertaken in the 
previous summer (1778) by a bold young surveyor, 
George Rogers Clark, commissioned by Governor Pat- 
rick Henry, of Virginia. In the last few years many 
settlers had gone into the Ohio valley, James Harrod, 
Daniel Boone, and other pioneers having begun the actual 
occupation of Kentucky in 1774 and 1775. Colonel 
Hamilton, commanding at Detroit, was known to be in- 
citing the Indian tribes of the region to a combined 
attack on these frontier settlements, and Clark offered to 
undertake the expulsion of the British from their whole 
western domain. Authorized by Governor Henry, he 
enlisted about 180 hardy riflemen, with whom he de- 
scended the Ohio to the Mississippi and passed up the 
great river, surprising and occupying the posts at Kas- 
kaskia and Kahokia — the latter near the site of St. 
Louis. In the following winter, hearing that Hamilton 
was at Vincennes, on the Wabash, gathering a force of 
Indians and whites, he made a wonderful march capture of 
across country and captured him there. Clark February^' 
expected reinforcements to join him for an ^*' ■■■^^^• 
expedition against Detroit ; but they were diverted to 



224 THE MAKING OF A NATION. 

attack a body of Indians "on the war path," at Chick- 
amauga. Even without the capture of Detroit, the con- 
quests of Clark gave the States a claim to the northwest 
which had great importance when boundaries were settled 
at the close of the war. 

129. Stony Point. — British Subjugation of Georgia 
and South Carolina. 1779-1780. After their retreat 
from Philadelphia in 1778, the British attempted nothing 
with their regular forces at the north, except some de- 
structive raids along the coast, until the end of May, 
1779, when Clinton captured a small fort which the 
Americans were building on the Hudson, at Stony Point, 
storming ^^ ^^^ retaken three weeks afterward by Gen- 
pofnwuiy eral Wayne (called ''Mad Anthony"), whose 
15,1779. storming of Stony Point, by the use of the 
bayonet and without firing a shot, was one of the famous 
exploits of the war. 

The military energies of the British were now being 
directed almost solely to the subjugation of the Southern 
States. At the end of December, 1778, Savannah was 
taken by a force from New York, and Georgia was 
practically subdued before spring. General Lincoln, 
who had won distinction in the campaign against Bur- 
goyne, now commanded the Continental forces in the 
south ; but they were too weak for effective use. 

In September the French fleet, under Count d'Estaing^ 
which had been in the West Indies since the fall of 
1778, came back to the American coast, and a joint 
attack on Savannah was arranged between Lincoln and 
d'Estaing. For three weeks regular siege op- 
savannah. erations were carried on ; then the French 
October, commander, fearinej autumnal storms, insisted 

1779 

upon an assault (October 9, 1 779), which failed 
disastrously, entailing a loss of 1000 men. Among the 



REVOLUTION AND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 225 

killed was Count Pulaski, a distinguished Pole, who en- 
tered the American service in 1777. The siege was 
abandoned and the P'rench fleet with- 
drew. 

Sir Henry Clinton was now pre- 
pared to enter the southern field in 
person for a vigorous campaign. In 
December he sailed from New York 
for Savannah, with 8000 men, fol- 
lowed by 3000 
more. General 
Lincoln, who 
had but 7000 




THE SEAT OF WAR IN THE SOUTH. 



troops, mistakenly allowed them to be shut up in Charles- 
ton, which Clinton invested early in the spring of 1780. 
By the 12th of May Lincoln's situation had become 



226 THE MAKING OF A NATION. 

hopeless, and the city, with the whole American army, 
Surrender ^^^ Surrendered that day. Within a few weeks 
toif May^ the British were in possession of the entire 
12, 1780. State, and Clinton, with most of his army, 
returned to New York, leaving I^ord Cornwallis in com- 
mand in the south. 

130. Naval Warfare. — Exploits of Paul Jones. 
1779. Naturally, in the early years of the war, the 
Americans could do little at sea. A feeble navy of 
cruisers was set afloat and a number of privateers re- 
ceived letters of marque ; but the British were able to 
strike harder blows at American commerce than the 
Americans could strike in return. The latter gained 
something in naval strength from the French alliance, 
by obtaining ships and equipments and by having the 
free use of French ports. It was then that the Scottish 
sailor. Captain Paul Jones, commissioned by the Con- 
tinental Congress, began to distinguish himself by the 
daring and success of his operations on the British 
coasts. In 1779 he was put in command of a small 
squadron which Franklin had fitted out in France. His 
flagship was an old vessel built for the India trade, 
slightly altered and re-named the Bon Homme Richard. 
On the 23d of September Jones encountered two Brit- 
ish frigates, convoying a large fleet of merchant ships. 
With the Bon Homme Richard he attacked the larger 
of the two, the Serapis, while one of his consorts fought 
the other. The battle which then took place between 
the two principal ships was one of the most 
Homme desperate ever fought. Before it ended the two 
andse- vcsscls were lashed together, with the muzzles 
September, of their guns almost touching each other's 

23 1779 *^ 

sides ; both were on fire, and more than half the 
crew of each were helplessly wounded or dead. Sheer 



REVOLUTION AND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 22/ 

exhaustion forced the Serapis to surrender at last. The 
Bon Homme Richard was in a sinking state, and went 
down the next morning, soon after the survivors of her 
crew had been transferred to the captured ship. By his 
daring operations Paul Jones gave a serious check to 
British trade. 

131. Deplorable State of South Carolina. — Disas- 
trous Campaign of Gates. May- August, 1780. After 
the surrender of Charleston, it fell to the lot of South 
Carolina to suffer the bitterest experience that was under- 
gone by any State. Clinton and his successor, Corn- 
wallis, pursued a policy which outlawed a large part of 
the people, who would not swear allegiance and give 
active support to King George. Such patriots were 
hunted by British troops and Tory partisans, their pro- 
perty destroyed or confiscated, their families and friends 
cruelly abused. No general combination among them 
could be formed, and they were gathered in small bands, 
under leaders of remarkable ability and skill, carrying on 
a harassing warfare, of the partisan or guerrilla partisan 
kind. The exploits and adventures of some of ■''^"*«®- 
those bands, under Francis Marion, Thomas Sumter, 
James Williams, Andrew Pickens, and other famous cap- 
tains, furnish many romantic tales to the history of the 
time. Colonel Tarleton, who was notorious for brutality, 
and Major Ferguson were the commanders most active 
against them on the British side. 

It was Washington's wish that General Greene, his 
most capable lieutenant, should succeed Lincoln in the 
southern command ; but Congress, with unpardonable 
perversity, took the selection from him and appointed its 
unworthy favorite. Gates. From his own dwindled forces 
in the north the commander-in-chief had sent some 2000 
well-tried troops to the Carolinas, under Baron De Kalb. 



228 THE MAKING OF A NATION. 

Gates reached them, at Hillsborough, North Carolina, in 
July, and was joined there by a few militia, forming alto- 
gether a little army of about 3000 men. With this he 
Battle oi rushed forward into South Carolina, and wrecked 
A^ust^e ^^^ army utterly in a blundering battle at Cam- 
^^^°- den (August 16, 1780), from the field of which 

he was one of a small number who escaped. The brave 
De Kalb fought hopelessly until he had received mortal 
wounds. 

132. Discouraging circumstances of the Country. 
1780. This ended the accidental reputation of Gates. 
Even Congress gave him up, and Washington was per- 
mitted, a few weeks later, to put Greene in his place. 
But the dreadful defeat at Camden had been a dangerous 
blow to the American cause. It came when the circum- 
stances of the country were in their most discouraging 
Continental State. The paper money poured out by Con- 
currency, gress, based on nothing but a promise, and even 
the promise made by no substantial authority, had lost all 
worth. Washington had to levy forced contributions on 
the surrounding country to feed his men. Practically 
they had no pay, and little prospect of any to come. 
Desertions were increasing and new recruits were hard 
to obtain. 

In July there was a momentary gleam of cheer, caused 
by the arrival of 6000 French troops, under Count de 
Rochambeau, sent as the result of a visit made by Lafay- 
ette to France. More were to follow, but a British fleet 
blockaded them in Brest, and they never sailed, 
beau's Thus far the French alliance had been sorely dis- 

appointing ; some increased aid in loans and 
helpful supplies, and some diversion of English forces to 
other fields of war, had been its only fruit ; but now there 
was hope that Washington would be enabled to strike 



REVOLUTION AND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 229 

important blows. It was a hope that soon sank. The 
French fleet that brought Rochambeau's army to New- 
port was immediately blockaded by a British squadron in 
Narragansett Bay, and the French troops were kept near 
at hand to support it against expected attack. A whole 
year was yet to pass before Washington would be able to 
make use of this reinforcement from France. 

133. Attempted Treason of Benedict Arnold. Sep- 
tember, 1780. And now came the appalling disclosure 
of a plot of treason in the army, from which the country 
had made but a hairbreadth escape. The traitor was 
Benedict Arnold, whose record as a soldier had been un- 
surpassed in brilliancy by any made since the 
war began. In the expedition to Canada, in de- of Arnold's 
fending Lake Champlain against Sir Guy Carle- 
ton, and in the battles which accomplished the defeat 
and capture of Burgoyne, his services had entitled him 
to a promotion which politicians in Congress gave to less 
deserving men. He resented this treatment, and later 
circumstances, arising while he held command at Phila- 
delphia (June, 1778-March, 1779), increased his feeling. 
At length, in his bitterness, he projected a great act of 
treason, to avenge what he deemed to be his wrongs. 
His first step was to ask for and obtain the command at 
West Point, on the Hudson River, which had 
been fortified strongly and was much the most 
important American post. To lose it was to lose the 
river, and probably to ruin the American cause. In 
secret correspondence with Sir Henry Clinton, Arnold 
planned to betray this citadel of the Hudson to the 
enemy. On the 22d of September he arranged the last 
details of the plan with Major Andre, a young j^j^j^j. 
officer of Clinton's staff, who ventured to meet ■^^'^'^^• 
him inside of the American lines. As the unfortunate 



230 THE MAKING OF A NATION. 

Andre returned from that meeting, he was caught, and 
papers found on his person disclosed the plot, Arnold 
got news of Andre's capture in time to escape and make 
his way to New York, where he received a British com- 
mission, and did service against his own countrymen in 
barbarous raids during the remainder of the war. It was 
Andre, the young British officer, who had to pay the 
penalty for the traitor's crime, since stern military law 
required his execution as a spy. 

134. The Southwestern Mountaineers to the Res- 
cue. October, 1780. The shock of the discovery of 
Arnold's treason was the last painful experience of a 
gloomy year. It was followed soon by a great uplifting 
change in the situation at the south, coming from an 
unlooked-for source. After his overwhelming victory at 
Camden, Cornwallis expected to subjugate North Caro- 
lina with ease, and moved his main army into that State. 
Before doing so he sent his partisan commander, Fergu- 
son, into the hill region on the border of the two Caro- 
linas, to enlist Tory recruits and to hunt down the armed 
Whigs. In carrying out his mission Ferguson pushed 
so far into the western wilderness that he stirred up those 
people of the mountains, — the Scotch-Irish and Hugue- 
not frontiersmen of western North Carolina, western 
Virginia, and eastern Tennessee, — who had been busy 
fighting and watching their Indian neighbors, and had 
taken no part hitherto in the war on its eastern side. 
These formidable riflemen now swarmed out of their 
mountain settlements, put Ferguson to flight. 
King's and pursued and surrounded him on a rocky 
October 7,' ridire called Kings's Mountain, which he thought 

1780. fD to ' to 

he could hold, with his i lOO men, agamst any 
possible attack. But the irresistible mountaineers stormed 
the height ; Ferguson and 400 or more of his followers 



REVOLUTION AND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 23 1 

were killed and wounded ; the remainder surrendered ; 
the Tories of the "up-country" were crushed. 

135. Greene's Campaign in the Carolinas. 1780- 
1781. The southern situation was greatly changed by 
this unexpected event. Cornwallis's plans were frus- 
trated and he fell back. Both I^ritish and American 
troops were sent southward from the northern com- 
mands, and early in December Greene superseded Gates. 
He had several fine officers to assist him, including 
Daniel Morgan and Henry Lee, the latter a splendid 
cavalry officer, father of the more famous Robert E. Lee. 
Morgan, sent westward with 900 men, opened the new 
campaign by nearly destroying a more than equal force 
under Tarleton, in a remarkably managed battle, 
fought at a place called the Cowpens, on the thecow- 
I7th of January, 1781. Cornwallis then moved January 

. 17 1781. 

in pursuit of Morgan, and was led nearly to the 
Virginia line, in a baffled effort to keep Morgan's forces 
from being reunited with Greene's. Greene gave him 
battle at Guilford Court House (March 15), and Battle of 
failed to drive him from his ground, but so court°^^ 
crippled him that he retreated to Wilmington Sarchis 
three days afterward, to be within reach of the ^'^^^- 
British fleet. Greene then marched straight into South 
Carolina, while Cornwallis went off to Virginia with the 
main body of his troops, but left forces in South Carolina 
as strong as Greene's. Two considerable battles were 
fought during the next six months, at Hobkirk's Hill, 
April 25, and at Eutaw Springs, September 8. The 
Americans were defeated in the first, and could not claim 
a victory in the second ; but they gained all the fruits of 
success. At the end of their campaign the Ikitish held 
no ground in South Carolina save the city of Charleston, 
and the state government was restored. Military critics 



232 THE MAKING OF A NATION. 

have greatly praised the generalship by which Greene 
accomplished these results. 

136. The Beginning of the End. — Yorktown. 
May-October, 1781. Meanwhile, in Virginia, the grand 
crisis of the war was drawing near, — the master-stroke 
was being prepared. When Cornwallis, quitting the 
Carolinas, brought his main command to Petersburg, 
Virginia, joining a considerable body of troops there, he 
was only opposed by a little army of about 3000, mostly 
militia, under Lafayette. But Steuben was in the State, 
rapidly raising and organizing an increased force. Lafay- 
ette retreated, and Cornwallis pursued him nearly to the 
Rapidan, but, after some overrunning of the country, 
turned back to the seaboard, finally placing his army at 
Yorktown (August, 1781), on the peninsula between the 
York River and the James. This brought him into easy 
communication with Sir Henry Clinton, at New York, 
and the position was one of safety so long as British fleets 
controlled the sea. It happened, however, that a French 
The com- fleet. Stronger than the British naval force in 
French^^ American waters, was coming from the West 
fleet. Indies to Chesapeake Bay at just this time. Its 

coming had been arranged for with the French admiral, 
Count de Grasse, by Washington and Rochambeau, some 
time before. Primarily, they had planned to have its 
help in a combined attack on New York ; but when 
Washington learned of Cornwallis's movements, he saw 
his opportunity for taking the army of that general in a 
trap. Keeping Sir Henry Clinton deceived by move- 
ments which seemed to threaten New York, he sud- 
denly transferred 2000 of his own troops and 4000 of 
Rochambeau's, with great secrecy and celerity, from the 
Hudson to the James. They were marched to the head 
of Chesapeake Bay and conveyed thence by shipping to 



REVOLUTION AND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 233 

the peninsula above Yorktovvn, where Lafayette, who 
had 'followed Cornwallis, with an increased force, was 
already entrenched. Already, too, the French fleet was 
in possession of the bay, a British squadron had been 
driven off, and 3000 French soldiers from the West In- 
dies had been landed to strengthen Lafayette. The 
trap was effectually sprung, and the whole scheme had 
been carried out so skilfully that the British commanders 
suspected nothing of what was on foot until too late to 
interfere. 

Washington reached Lafayette's headquarters on the 
14th of September ; his forces from the north arrived be- 
tween the 1 8th and the 26th, and siege operations were 

begun. Cornwallis held out until the 17th of 

^ . , Cornwal- 

October, when the hopelessness of his situa- iis'ssur- 

. . 1 • n render, 

tion was confessed by raismg the white flag. October 19, 
On the 19th he gave up his sword, and his men, 
7247 soldiers and 840 seamen, laid down their arms, as 
prisoners of war. 

137. Peace. In reality that surrender was the end- 
ing of the War of Independence, though partisan hostil- 
ities were kept up, especially in the south, and though 
British and American armies confronted each other for 
many months more, while Charleston and New York were 
still in the enemy's hands. King George's obstinacy 
postponed for a few months, but it could not prevent, 
the beginning of steps toward an arrangement of peace. 
Parliament forced it on. Lord North and his ministry 
were driven to resign on the 20th of March, 

° Reslgna- 

1782, and King George was compelled to ac- tionoi 

V 1 , . 1 r . • • • , Lord North, 

cept Lord Rockingham for prime minister, with March 20, 

^ tor -^732. 

a Whig cabinet, made up mostly of statesmen 

who had steadily opposed the American war and the 

measures that brought it about. An agent, Mr. Oswald, 



234 THE MAKING OF A NATION. 

sent to Paris by one of the new ministers, Lord Shel- 

burne, conferred at first with FrankHn alone. This led 

to more formal neofotiations, in which John Jay, 

Peace nego- ^ j j 

tiationsat John Adams, and Henry Laurens were asso- 

Paris. -^ . . •' . . 

ciated with Dr. Franklin as commissioners em- 
powered by Congress to represent the United States. 
At the same time Lord Shelburne, who became prime 
minister in July, opened peace negotiations with France 
and Spain. In the course of the subsequent parleyings 
the American commissioners found reason to believe that 
Vergennes, the French minister, was more than willing 
to weaken the future growth of the United States by 
making the Alleghanies their western boundary, and that 
Spain had the same end in view. That led them to cease 
counselling with Vergennes, and their further negotia- 
tions with the British ministers were carried on in a pri- 
vate way, until agreements were reached and the articles 

of a treaty sierned provisionally on the 30th of 

Treaty, No- y & 1 j o ^ 

vember 30, November, 1782. It was not to have effect until 

1782, and , . . , ^ t^ . • 

September the settlement ot peace between Great Britam 

3, 1783. 

and France. When that came to pass, the same 
treaty, unchanged, was signed on the 3d of September, 

1783, and was ratified on both sides. 

138. Terms of the Treaty of Peace. The United 
States secured western territory to the Mississippi, and 
from the Floridas to the Great Lakes ; but the eastern 
and western extremities of the northern boundary line 
were so imperfectly described in the treaty that dis- 
putes about them lasted for many years. In the 

Boundaries . r ^^ 1 • i a • 

and fisher- important matter 01 fisheries, the Americans 
were given equal rights with British fishermen 
to take fish on all the British-American coasts. Con- 
cerning the American loyalists or Tories, who had sided 
with the mother country in the conflict, a question of great 



REVOLUTION AND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 235 

embarrassment arose. Feeling against them was so bit- 
terly unforgiving in many States that they had been and 
were being driven into exile, with confiscation of their 
property, wherever they lost the protection of 
the British arms. It was not only cruel treat- of American 

lovfllists 

ment, but unwise, as we look at it now. It is 
certain that the loyalists mistook what was right and 
best, in opposing separation from the British Empire ; 
but it is equally certain that a large number of them did 
so conscientiously, and would have accepted the result 
of the war in good faith, becoming citizens as loyal to 
the new republic as they had been loyal to the king. 
Many of them were persons of character, of culture, of 
capability, of importance in their occupations and their 
means, and the country suffered a serious loss when it 
drove them out. But many others of the Tory faction, 
especially in New York and the Carolinas, had been 
malignantly and barbarously active in the war, and had 
excited a hatred that extended to the whole loyalist class. 
Great Britain felt bound to provide in the treaty for the 
protection of these people, its partisans ; but the feeble 
government of the United States, as then constituted, 
could only promise to recommend to the several States 
that they restore confiscated property and allow exiled 
loyalists to return to their homes. It did so, and fulfilled 
the promise, but with no effect. It was equally power- 
less in another matter which the treaty touched, relating 
to the payment of debts that were due to British creditors 
when the war broke out. The obligations of the 
treaty were totally disregarded in most of the British 
States, and their action provoked the British 
government to keep possession of several forts in the 
west for many years. 

It has been estimated that the loyalists who left the 



236 THE MAKING OF A NATION. 

United States during or immediately after the War of 
Independence numbered no less than 100,000. From 
The exiled ^^^ York alone 12,000 went a short time 
loyalists. before the British evacuation of the city, in 
1783. For the most part they found homes in Nova 
Scotia and Canada, where they received grants of land, 
and in the Bahamas, which attracted many from the 
south. 

139. Dissolving the Continental Army. — Retire- 
ment of Washington. 1781-1783. Until the terms of 
peace between Great Britain and France were agreed 
upon, in January, 1783, and until news of that agree- 
ment reached America, late in March, the American and 
British forces were both kept under arms. A cessation 
of hostilities was then proclaimed on both sides. Wash- 
ington communicated the proclamation of Congress to 
the army on the 19th of April, exactly eight years from 
that day at Lexington when the war began. Most of 
the soldiers were then permitted to return to their 
homes. 

In the last year of its service there had been increas- 
ing disaffection in the army, and nothing but the potent 
influence of Washington had prevented some violent 
Discontent Outbreak. The pay of the soldiers was far in 
oithearmy. arrears, and they feared that, if disbanded, no 
attempt would be made to meet their claims. To keep 
his experienced officers, Washington had persuaded 
Congress to promise half-pay for life to those who served 
until the end of the war ; but there seemed to be less 
and less prospect that Congress would be able to make 
its promise good. Mean spirits were ready to work upon 
every doubt and every fear. Gates was again a leader 
among these, and one of his staff. Major Armstrong, 
wrote an inflammatory address which was circulated in 



REVOLUTION AND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 237 

the camp at Newburgh (March 11, 1783), calling for a 
general meeting of the army to discuss its wrongs. 
Washington foiled the dangerous design by 
making the meeting an official one and address- burgh ad- 

dross 

ing it himself, in terms which shamed the mal- March, 

. . 1783. 

contents.' He then induced Congress to com- 
mute the promised half-pay for life into a sum equal to 
full pay for five years, and to offer it immediately in 
certificates bearing interest at six per cent. The com- 
mutation, though much denounced in the country, proved 
generally acceptable to the officers, and mutinous dis- 
affection was checked. Enough remained, however, to be 
dangerous still, as appeared three months later, when an 
outbreak of eighty soldiers in Pennsylvania drove Con- 
gress from Philadelphia to Princeton in fright. 

These and some prior demonstrations among the sol- 
diers gave rise to much distrust of the army, as the time 
for its dissolution drew near. The feeling was increased 
when, in the spring of 1783, a secret society, or brother- 
hood, called the Order of the Cincinnati,^ was formed 
among the officers of the army and navy, to be ^^le 
perpetuated by their sons, for the innocent pur- Cincinnati, 
pose of keeping alive the friendships and associations of 
their service in a common cause. Some sinister design 
in the organization was suspected, especially that of 
seeking to establish an hereditary aristocracy ; and the 
order was so fiercely denounced that the hereditary fea- 
ture of its constitution was given up by many state 
societies, but not by all. It has an existence still in 
several States. 

New York remained in the possession of the British 

1 So named to suggest the likeness of its members to Cincin- 
natus, the Roman, who left his plough to command the army of his 
country, and returned to it when the campaign was closed. 



238 REVOLUTION AND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

until the 25th of November, when the last of their troops 
British sailed away. On the 4th of December Wash- 
o?New*^°° ington took leave of his officers and departed 
vember25, ^^^ ^"^^^ home at Mount Vernon, receiving 
1783. proofs at every stage of his journey that the 

immeasurable greatness of his service to the country was 
well understood. At Annapolis, where Congress was 
then sitting, he resigned his commission and asked 
leave to retire to private life. He submitted a state- 
washing- nient of moneys that he had expended from his 
to^ivat?^ private fortune during the war, amounting to 
^"®" $64,315, for which he desired reimbursement; 

but of pay for his personal services he would take none. 
On Christmas eve he reached the home which he had 
seen but once in eight years. 

TOPICS AND SUGGESTED READING AND RESEARCH. 

107. Lexington and Concord. — ** The Shot heard 
round the World." 

Topics and References. 

I. Gage's attempt to seize Adams and Hancock at Lexington 
and destroy stores at Concord. 2. Paul Revere's ride. 3. The 
first bloodshed of the war on Lexington Green. 4. Fighting at 
Concord and British retreat. 5. The New England rising. — Gage 
beleaguered in Boston. 6. Character of the besieging army. Froth- 
ingham, Sirj^t' of Bosto9i, ch. ii. ; Fiske, Afn. Rcv.^ i. 120-126; 
Bancroft, iv. 152-166; Hosmer, Adams, 329-331 ; Sloane, 183-187. 

108. Effect of the News. 

Topics and References. 

I. Effect of the news in the middle colonies. 2. Uprising in 
Virginia and the Carolinas. Bancroft, iv. 1 76-181 ; Hildreth, iii. 
69-74; Frothingham, Rise of the Rep., 415-418; Tyler, Hefuy, 
ch. X. ; McCrady, ii. ch. xh. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 239 

109. Capture of Ticonderoga and Crown Point. 

Tories AND References. 

I. Connecticut origination and Vermont undertaking of the ex- 
pedition. 2. What it gave to the patriots, Robinson, ch. vii.; 
Hall, ch. vi.-vii. ; Fiske, A7;i. Rev., i. 129-132; Hildreth, iii. 74- 
76; Bancroft, iv. 182-183. 

110. Second Continental Congress. — Appointment 
of "Washington to Chief Military Command. 

Topics and References. 

1. Leading members of the Congress. 2. Declaration of the 
causes of armed resistance, and petition to the king (text in 
MacDonald, i. 374-385). Bancroft, iv. 190-192, 199-200; Morse, 
Adams, 87-93. 

3. Adoption of the forces in arms as a "Continental Army." 
4. Appointment of Washington to chief command. 5. His unique 
greatness. 6. Other military appointments. Washington, ii. 476- 
493; Adams, ii. 415-418; Lecky, iii. 465-472; Bancroft, iv. 204- 
213; Fiske, y^;;z. Rev., 133-136; Morse, Adams, 93-100; Lodge, 
Washington, i. 1 31-133; Sloane, 195-199. 

7. Failure of Congress to assume needed powers. Hoist, Const. 
Law, 6-12; Johnston, United States, 56-57; Frothingham, Rise 
of the Rep., 421-428. 
Research. — Foreign estimates of Washington. Guizot, Essay ; 

F. Harrison, Washington, 3-27; E. A. Freeman, 62-103. 

111. Bunker Hill. 

Topics and References. 

I. Fortification of Breed's Hill. 2. Unsuccessful assaults by the 
British troops. 3. Reasons for their final success. 4. Why the 
American cause suffered no effect of defeat. Frothingham, Siege 
of Boston, ch. iv.-vii. ; Carrington, ^^///^j, ch. xv.-xvii.; Fiske, 
Am. Rev., i. 136-146; Bancroft, iv. 213-231 ; Sloane, 199-202. 

112. Washington's Task. — Expeditions to Canada. 

Topics and References. 

I. State of the American army besieging Boston. 2. Washing- 
ton's difficulties, and the primary cause of them. Washington, 
iii. 8-70, 245-249 ; Carrington, Washington , ch. v. ; Fiske, A?n, 



240 REVOLUTION AND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

Rev.^ i. 147-157 ; Bancroft, iv. 239-243, 247-250; Lecky, iii. 482- 
488 ; Frotliingham, Siege of Boston^ ch. viii.-xi.; O. S. Leaf., 47 ; 
Lodge, Washington, i. 133-148. 

3. The expeditions to Canada. Carrington, Battles, xx., xxi. ; 
Robinson, ch. viii. ; Hall, ch. x.-xiii. ; P^iske, Am. Rev.., i. 165-169 ; 
Bancroft, iv. 291-308; Washington, iii. 1 21-127. 

113. Ripening of the Public Mind for Independence. 

Topics and References. 

I. King George's proclamation of rebellion. 2. His hiring of 
Hessians and the effect in America. E. J. Lowell, ch. i.-v. ; Ban- 
croft, iv. 269-272, 276-279, 347-358; Fiske, Am. Rev., i. 172, 173. 

3. Movements in Congress toward declared independence : Ad- 
vice to colonies, — Correspondence with foreign powers. 4, Act 
of Parliament against American commerce. 5. Paine's pamphlet 
entitled " Common Sense." Frothingham, Rise of the Rep., 445- 
489; Lecky, iii. 494-498 ; Winsor, America, vi. ch. iii. ; Bancroft, 
iv. 310-316, 359-371 ; Sloane, 211-214; Hart, Cofitemp^s,\\. ^00- 
504. 

Research. — Life and character of Thomas Paine. Sedgwick, 
Paine ; Fiske, Am. Rev., i. 

114. Boston given up by the British. 

Topics and References. 

I, Washington's difficulties in the siege. 2. How he forced the 
British out. Washington, iii. 313, 444-470,475-481 ; Frothingham, 
Siege of Boston, ch. xii. ; Carrington, Washington, ch. viii. ; Fiske, 
Am. Rev., \. 169-172; Bancroft, iv. 322-331 ; Lodge, Washington, 
i. 148-15 1 ; O. S. Leaf, 86. 

115. War in North Carolina. — Demands for a Decla- 
ration of Independence. 

Topics and References. 

- I. Battle of Moore's Creek with Tory Scotch Highlanders. 
2. Frustrated British plans. 3. Action in the Carolinas and 
Georgia favoring independence. 4. Action in other colonies. — 
Virginia Declaration of Rights (text in Larned, Ready Ref, Vir- 
ginia). Bancroft, i v. 382-397, 412-434; Hildreth, iii. 118-120,124- 
127, 131-132; Frothingham, Rise of the Rep., 499-530; Fiske, 
Atn. Rev.., i. 175-190 ; Mac Lean, ch. v. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 241 

5. The situation in New York. — Its military importance. — 
Strength of the Tories. Sabine, i. ch. iii. ; Flick, ch. i.-v. 
Research. — Military importance of the line of the Hudson River. 

Washington, vi. 231-232 ; Mahan, Sea Power in Hist., 342-343. 

116. Independence Declared. 

Topics and References. 

I. The composition, adoption, and signing of the Declaration of 
Independence (text in MacDonald, ii. 1-6 ; O. S. Leaf.., 3 ; Am. 
Hist. Leaf., 11; Earned, Ready Ref). 2. Formation of state 
governments. Higginson, ch. xi. ; Frothingham, Rise of the Rep., 
532-558; MorsQ,feffe?-son, 32-40, ?im\ Ada^jis, 124-129; Hildreth, 
iii. 132-138 ; Bancroft, iv. 1 12-125, 435-452. 

117. British Repulse at Charleston. 

Topics and References. 

I. Colonel Moultrie's fort. 2. His repulse of the British attack. 
Carrington, Battles, ch. xxviii.; McCrady, iii. ch. vii. ; Bancroft, 
iv. 397-411 ; Fiske, A;n. Rev., \. 198-200. 

118. Battle of Long Island. — Retreat of "Washing- 
ton from New York and through New Jersey. 

Topics and References. 

I. British capture of New York and Washington's retreat. 
2. Invasion from the north checked by Arnold. 3. Criticism of 
Washington and intrigues against him. 4. Washington's retreat 
through New Jersey. 5. The "times that try men's souls." 
Washington, iv. 362-376, v. 1-126; Carrington, Washington, ch. 
ix.-xiii., and Battles, ch. xxix.-xxxvii. ; Winsor, America, vi. 275- 
293 ; G. W. Greene, Greene, ii. 152-295 ; Fiske, Am. Rev., i. 198- 
229, and Essays, 78-83 ; Bancroft, v. 24-87 ; Hildreth, iii. ch. 
xxxiv. ; Lecky, iv. 1-25; Lodge, Washington, \. 154-174; Hart, 
Contemp'^s, ii. 559-562; Sloane, 238-250. 

119. The Situation changed. — "Washington turning 

upon his Pursuers. 

Topics and References. 

I. Position of the two armies near the Delaware. 2. Washing- 
ton crosses the Delaware. 3. Battles of Trenton and Princeton. 



242 REVOLUTION AND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

— Recovery of lost ground. 4. Effect of tlie brief campaign. — 
Help secured from France. Washington, v. 127-170 ; Carrington, 
Washhigfon, ch. xiv.-xv., and Battles, ch. xxxviii.-xli. ; Winsor, 
America, vi. 367-379 ; Hildreth, iii. ch. xxxv. ; Fiske, A7n. Rev., i. 
229-241; Bancroft, v. 88-110; Lecky, iv. 27-56; Lodge, Wash- 
ington^ i. 174-179; Morse, Fra?iklin, 219-239; Sloane, 251-264. 

120. Burgoyne's Invasion. — Capture of his Army. — 

Undeserved Credit to General Gates. 

Topics and References. 

I. Object of the British invasion from the north. — The two 
lines of the movement. 2. Burgoyne's success in the beginning. 
3. British employment of Indians. 4. Country people in arms. — 
Their victory at Bennington. 5. Failure of St. Leger. — Siege of 
Fort Stanwix and battle of Oriskany. 6. Failure of Howe to 
move up from New York and meet Burgoyne. 7. Desperate situa- 
tion of Burgoyne. 8. The two battles on Bemis Heights. — Bur- 
goyne's surrender. Carrington, Battles, ch. xliii.-xlviii. ; Fiske, 
Atn. Rev., \. 260-298, 325-343 ; Bancroft, v. 157-173, 182-191 ; 
Hildre-th, iii. 196-215 ; Lecky, iv. 63-69 ; Sloane, 265-271, 275-279 ; 
Stone, i. ch. ix.-xiii. ; Robinson, ch, xi.-xii. ; Hart, Cojitenip^s^ 
ii. 565-568. 

9. Unmerited credit to General Gates and its mischievous effects. 
Fiske, A7/1. Rev., i. 296-297 ; Hildreth, iii. 215. 

121. Why and how General Howe was kept from 

meeting Burgoyne. 

Topics and References. 

I. What carelessness and want of judgment brought about. 
2. Washington's manoeuvring to keep Howe engaged. 3. Ameri- 
can defeat at Brandywine. 4. The British win Philadelphia. 
5. Washington's frustrated attack at Germantown. Washington, 
V- 435-438, 444-4<^'2, .502-504, 507-508, vi. 1-29, 45-88, 93-103; 
Carrington, Jl'ashington, ch. xviii.-xix., and Battles, ch. xlix.-lii. ; 
Mahan, Sea Power in Hist., 343-344; Winsor, A?ne?'ica, vi. 379- 
389 ; Fiske, Am. Rev., i. 2C)C)-^2J[. ; Bancroft, v. 174-181, 192-199; 
Lodge, IVashington, i. 188-196. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 243 

122. Intrigues for Gates against Washington. — The 

Conway Cabal. 

Topics and References. 

I. Shallowness of the criticism of Washington. 2. Declining 
character of the Continental Congress. 3. The " Conway Cabal." 
Washington, vii. 39; Fiske, Am. Rev., ii. ch. ix. ; G. W. Greene, 
Greene., ii. 1-40; Bancroft, v. 210-212, 214-217; Hildreth, iii. 232- 
237; Lodge, Washington., i. 206-221. 

123. The 'Winter at Valley Forge. — State of the 

Country. 

Topics and References. 

I. Position of Valley Forge. 2. Washington's report of the 
condition of the army. 3. Causes of the ill state of things. Wash- 
ington, vi. 252-268, 300-351, 357-360, 379-383 ; Fiske, Am. Rev., 
ii. 25-31 ; Lecky, iv. 60-63 ; Bancroft, v. 212-221 ; Tower, i.ch. x. ; 
Carrington, Washington, ch. xx.-xxi. ; Hart, Cojttemp^s, ii. 568- 

573- 

4. The " Continental currency." — Financial state of the coun- 
try. Bolles, i. ch. iii., and ix.-xiii. ; Sumner, The Financier, ch. 
iv., and Am. Currency, 43-50. 

5. Lafayette, Steuben, Hamilton. Tuckerman, ch. i. 14-26; 
Kapp, ch. V. ; Lodge, Hamilton, 14-26; Fiske, Am. Rev.yW. 50- 
55 ; Hart, Contempts, ii. 485-488 ; O. S. Leaf., 97-98. 

124. Treaty of Alliance with France. — Peace Over- 

tures from England. 

Topics and References. 

I. Alliance with France and pledges given. 2. Peace over- 
tures from England. 3. Demands in England for peace. Morse, 
Fra7iklin, 266-285 ; Winsor, Westward, ch. ix. ; Fiske, Am. Rev., 
ii. ch. viii. ; Tower, i. ch. ix. ; Hildreth, ii. 239-249 ; Bancroft, v. 
244-253. 

125. British Evacuation of Philadelphia. — Battle of 

Monmouth. — Treachery of Charles Lee. 

Topics and Ref'erences. 

I. Circumstances leading to the battle at Monmouth. 2. Treach- 
ery of Lee while Howe's prisoner. — His conduct at Monmouth. 



244 REVOLUTION AND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

3. Generalship and discipline shown in the battle. 4. Lee court- 
martialed, Washington, vii. 66-97 ; Carrington, Washington^ 
ch. xxii., and Battles, ch. liv.-lvii. ; Fiske, A7n. Rev., ii. 56-71, and 
Essays, i. 83-95 '■> Lodge, lVashingt07t, ii. 226-233 ; Bancroft, v. 
271-278; Sloane, 295-298. 

126. Washington again guarding the Hudson. 

Topics and References. 

I. Washington's main task in the war. 2. Unsuccessful coop- 
eration with French fleet and troops. Fiske, Am. Rev., ii. 72-80; 
Lodge, Washington, i. 234-249 ; Bancroft, v. 284-285. 

127. Tory and Indian Raids on the Frontier. — Sulli- 
van's Expedition to Western New York. 

Topics and References. 

I. Character of the warfare waged by Tories and Indians on the 
frontier. 2. Joseph Brant and the Butlers. 3.. W3'oming and 
Cherry Valley. 4. Sullivan's expedition. Winsor, America, vi. 
ch. viii. ; Stone, ii. ch. i. ; Roberts, ii. 426-432; Y\s\!iQ, Am. Rev., 
ii. 82-94. 

128. Clark's Conquest of the Northwest. 
Topics and References. 

1. Progress of settlement in the Ohio valley. — Pioneers of Ken- 
tucky. Roosevelt, The Winning, i. ch. x. ; Winsor, Westwa7'd, 
13-21, and ch. iv., viii. ; Drake, Ohio Valley States, 93-130. 

2. Hostile plans of the British commander at Detroit. 3. George 
Rogers Clark's campaign. 4. Importance of Clark's conquests. 
Roosevelt, The Winnitig, ii. ch. i.-iii. and viii. ; Dunn, ch. iv. ; 
Hinsdale, Old N. W., 152-159; Fiske, Ant. Re7'., ii. 101-109; 
O. S. Leaf., 43; Bancroft, v. 309-316; Hart, Co7iteinp's, ii. 579- 
582. 

1 29. Stony Point. — British Subjugation of Georgia 

and South Carolina. 

Topics and References. 

I. Loss and recovery of Stony Point. 2. British efforts concen- 
trated on the south. 3. Failure of a second cooperative under- 
taking of American and French forces. 4. Surrender of Ameri- 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 245 

can army at Charleston. Carrington, Battles^ ch. xli.-lxiii, ; Mc- 
Crady, iii. ch. xix.-xxiii.; Winsor, America, vi. 469-474; Lecky, 
iv. 127-130; Hildreth, iii. 274-282, 292-295, 304-305; Bancroft, 
V. 366-379; Sloane, 312-316. 

130. Naval Warfare. — Exploits of Paul Jones. 

Topics and References. 

I. Weakness of the Americans at sea. 2. Naval gains from 
the French alliance. 3. Paul Jones and his exploits. Winsor, 
A7nerica, v\.Q.h..\\\.\ Cooper, i. 1 79-209 ; Brady, ch. ix.-xi. ; Hart, 
Contempts, ii. 587-590. 

131. Deplorable State of South Carolina. — Disas- 
trous Campaign of Gates. 

Topics and References. 

I. Partisan or guerrilla warfare. — Famous Carolina leaders. 2. 
Congress and General Gates. 3. The defeat at Camden. Mc- 
Crady, iii. ch. xxv.-xxx. ; Yisko., Am. Rev. ii. 179-194; Hildreth, 
111.307-309,313-317; Bancroft, V. 380-390; Sloane, 316-319; Lecky, 
iv. 131-134; Winsor, y^?//t'r/^<2, vi. 475-478 ; Simms. 

132. Discouraging Circumstances of the Country. 

Topics and References. 

I. Seriousness of the Camden disaster. 2. Worthlessness of 
" Continental currency." 3. State of the army. 4. Arrival of 
Rochambeau and a French army. — Disappointed hopes from 
them. Fiske, A^n. Rev., ii. 196-205; Hart, For?nation, 89-92, and 
Contetnp^s, ii. 601-603 '■> Bancroft, v. 439-450 ; Lecky, iv. 135-143 ; 
Lodge, Washington, \. 26^-2^2 ; Sloane, 322-324, 327-328 ; Wash- 
ington, viii. 507. 

133. Attempted Treason of Benedict Arnold. 

Topics and Rp:ferences. 

I. Arnold's military career and his treatment by Congress. 2. 
His attempted revenge. 3. Importance of West Point. 4. Cap- 
ture and execution of Major Andre. 5. Arnold in the British 
service. Washington, viii. 449-458, 472-475, 493-494, 498-502 ; 
Fiske, Afn, Rev.y ii. ch. xiv. ; Bancroft, v. 423-438 ; Winsor, 



246 REVOLUTION AND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 

America, vi. 447-468; Lecky, iv. 145-159; Lodge, Washington, i 
273-281. 

134. The Southern Mountaineers to the Rescue. 

Topics and References. 

I. Cornwallis's invasion of North Carolina. 2. Major Ferguson 
and the mountaineers. 3. Battle of King's Mountain. Draper ; 
Roosevelt, The IVitining, ii. ch. ix. ; Carrington, Battles, ch. Ixv. ; 
Bancroft, v. 394-401 ; McCrady, iii. ch. xxxiv.-xxxv. ; Fiske, Am. 
Rev., ii. 244-249; Winsor, America, vi. 478-480; Phelan, ch. vii. ; 
Sloane, 319-322. 

135. Greene's Campaign in the Carolinas. 

Topics and References. 

I. Changed situation in the south. 2. Greene and his chief offi- 
cers. — Battle of the Cowpens. 3. Battles of Guilford Court House, 
Hobkirk's Hill, and Eutaw Springs. 4. British situation at the 
end of Greene's campaign. G. W. Greene, Greejie, iii. b'k iv. ; F. 
V. Greene, Greene, ch. x.-xiii. ; Carrington, Battles, ch. Ixvii.-lxxi. ; 
Winsor, America, vi. 480-495 ; Fiske, Am. Rev., ii. 249-268 ; Ban- 
croft, V. 476-504; Hildreth, iii. 327-329, 341-35 1 1 Sloane, 330-336. 

136. Beginning of the End. — Yorktown. 

Topics and References. 

I. Cornwallis in Virginia. — Lafayette's movements. 3. Posi- 
tion of Cornwallis at Yorktown. — His safety dependent on British 
control of the sea. 3. The coming of the French fleet. 4. The 
trap which caught Cornwallis. 5. The Yorktown siege and sur- 
render. Washington, ix. 336-400, xi. 293-295 ; Carrington, Wash- 
ington, ch. xxxii.-xxxvi., and Battles, ch. Ixxii.-lxxvi. ; Lecky, iv. 
211-217; Fiske, A7n. Rev., ii. 269-286; Bancroft, v. 505-522; 
Lodge, Washington, \. 296-312; Sloane, 337-347; Hildreth, iii. 
354-358 ; Tuckerman, i. ch. vi. ; Tower, ii. ch. xxv.-xxviii. ; Hart, 
Contempts, ii. 615-618. 

137. Peace. 

Topics and References. 

I. Consequences of Cornwallis's surrender. — What remained 
of the war. 2. Effect in England. — The king's obstinacy. — 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 247 

Resignation of Lord North. — The new cabinet. 3. Opening of 
peace negotiations. — American commissioners. Lecky, iv. 218- 
232, 243-255 ; Morse, Franklin, 357-365 ; Bancroft, v. 529-580 ; 
Hildreth, iii. 411-424. 

4. Suspected designs of France and Spain, and private agree- 
ment with Great Britain as to terms. 5. Preliminary and final 
treaty (text in MacDonald, ii. 15-21). Winsor, Westward, ch. 
xii. ; Pellew, ch. vii.-viii. ; Lecky, iv. 275-284; Wharton, i. ch. ix. 
sect. III, and ch. xiii. sect. 158 ; John Adams, i. ch. vii., iii. 300- 
358, and viii. 5-143- 

138. Terms of the Treaty of Peace. 

Topics and References. 

I. Boundaries. 2. Fisheries. 3. Treatment of American Loy- 
alists. 4. Debts to British creditors. 5. Conduct of the States in 
disregard of the treaty. — Powerlessness of Congress. 6. New 
homes of exiled loyalists. Flick, ch. vii.-ix. ; Lecky, iv. 273-275, 
284-289; Curtis, i. 249-259; Hart, Forjnati07t, 96-98; Winsor, 
America, vii. 185-214; Sabine, i. ch. ix.-xiii, 

139. Dissolution of the Continental Army. — Re- 
tirement of Washington. 

Topics and References. 

I. Cessation of hostilities. — Furloughing and discharging of 
soldiers. 2. Disaffection in the army during its last year. 3. 
The Newburgh Address, — Mischievous design foiled by Wash- 
ington. 4. Commutation of half-pay. 5. The " Order of the Cin- 
cinnati." 6. British evacuation of New York. 7. Washington's 
resignation and return to Mount Vernon. Washington, x. 168- 
184, 225-230, 270-274, 334-339; Irving, iv. ch. xxxi.-xxxiii ; Mc- 
Master, i. 103-106; Bancroft, vi. 70-109; Curtis, i. 155-171 ; Hil- 
dreth, iii. 428-443; Lodge, Washington, i. 323-341. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE UNITED STATES UNDER THE ARTICLES OF CON- 
FEDERATION. I 781-1789. 

140. The "Critical Period." 1781-1788. Neither 
prosperity nor any hopeful prospect came to the country 
with the advent of peace. On the contrary, the years 
following were a time which Dr. Fiske has described 
correctly as being ''the critical period of American his- 
tory." It was made critical by the want of a general 
government having power to do in and for the States as 
a whole what they could not do by separate action each 
for itself. They had gone through the war, very nearly 
to its ending, with no more organization of a general 
government than that with which they began it in 1775. 
Until 1 78 1 the Continental Congress had continued to 
act on its own discretion alone, as to what it might do 
or might not, and the States had paid less and less re- 
spect to its orders, its advice, or its appeals. It had sought 
from the beginning a more definite organization of federal 
government ; but five years were consumed in the move- 
ment to that end. On the nth of June, 1776, the same 
day on which a committee was appointed to draft the 
Declaration of Independence, another committee was 
directed *' to prepare and digest the form of a confedera- 
tion to be entered into between these colonies ; " but 
it was not till the middle of November, 1777, ^^at Ar- 
ticles of Confederation were agreed upon in Congress 
and recommended to the States. Eleven States gave 



UNDER ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION. 249 

assent to them within the next year. Delaware delayed 

ratification until February, 1779, and Maryland 

was not persuaded to accept the Articles until Articles oi 

Confedera- 
February, 1781. Not till then was there a con- tion, March, 

stitutional confederation of the United States. 

141. Cession of Western Territory by the States 
claiming it. 1780-1781.1 The obstructive attitude 
of Maryland was justified by sound reasons, and it forced 
a result of great importance to the future of the Ameri- 
can nation. That result was the cession to the United 
States of the wide expanse of unoccupied western terri- 
tory, to which seven of the thirteen States laid more 
or less conflicting claims. It will be remembered that 
Virginia, by virtue of her charter of 1609 (see sect. 3), 
strengthened by Clark's conquests in 1778-79 (see sect. 
128), claimed not only the Kentucky district, claims oi 
lying due west of her old inhabited area, but ^J^nJJJ 
also the whole northwestern region now cov- ^"^' 
ered by the States of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wiscon- 
sin, and Illinois. New York disputed that claim, so far 
as concerned the whole region subjugated by the Six 
Nations of the Iroquois. Their sovereignty, it was main- 
tained, had passed to the British crown, and from the 
crown to the State of New York. Both those claims were 
disputed in part by Massachusetts and Connecticut, 
whose ancient charters gave them zones of ter- 

° Claims of 

ritory from sea to sea. They could not deny Massa- 

"^ . chusetts 

that the zones were broken into by the Dutch andCon- 

nectlcut. 

occupation of New Netherland, by the English 
conquest from the Dutch, and by the grant to the 
Duke of York, nor deny that territory beyond the Missis- 
sippi had been given up to Spain ; but they claimed all 
that was not thus taken out. As against the grant to 

1 See Map VIII. 



250 THE MAKING OF A NATION. 

William Penn, the Connecticut claim was maintained 
with obstinacy for many years, and asserted in practice by 
Claims of ^ settlement of emigrants from Connecticut in 
unasSid the Wyoming region of northern Pennsylvania, 
Georgia. where they suffered the dreadful massacre of 
1778 (see sect. 127). In the south, similar claims were 
put forth by the Carolinas and Georgia, founded on simi- 
lar royal grants. 

Seven States were thus claiming the whole unoccupied 
territory in the west. The six States which had no such 
claims contended reasonably that the wilderness in ques- 
tion should be ceded to the proposed Confederation and 
become a national domain, until peopled for new States. 
Demands of Except Maryland, however, all yielded to the 
Maryland, need of a more definite general government 
and ratified the Articles of Confederation without wait- 
ing for any of the demanded cessions to be made. 
Maryland resisted until New York had authorized its 
delegates in Congress to " restrict its boundaries in the 
western parts by such line or lines ... as they shall 
deem expedient ; " until Connecticut had offered a par- 
tial cession of lands, though not of jurisdiction ; and until 
Virginia had signified her willingness, on certain condi- 
tions, to convey her title to all lands northwest of the 
Cessions, Ohio River. The New York deed of cession 
1781-1802. ^^g executed in February, 1781; the Virginia 
cession was made complete in 1784 ; Massachusetts 
ceded her claims in 1785; Connecticut compromised 
hers in 1786, securing a tract in northern Ohio, long 
known as the Connecticut or Western Reserve, and giv- 
ing up the rest. The cession of South Carolina was 
executed in 1787, that of North Carolina in 1790, and 
that of Georgia not until 1802. 

142. Weakness of the Confederation. 1781-1789. 



UNDER ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION. 251 

Hard and long as it had been striven for, the adoption 
of the Articles of Confederation made little change in 
the structure or the working of government. By their 
own declaration, the Articles established no more than 
"a firm league of friendship " between the States. They 
were framed to give merely a legal form to the loose 
alliance of the past six years, few people being yet pre- 
pared to venture more. Their long difficulties with the 
British government had left the Americans with an al- 
most unreasoning fear of any authority in government 
superior to that which they watched and controlled near 
at hand, in their several States. The whole tendency 
of their political situation had been to give 

1 ' r- 1 r- 1 • 11 AH power 

their State s^overnments the first place m all in the 

states 

their political habits of thought. Their Confed- 
eration of "the United States of America" was shaped 
accordingly, with all the energy of government distrib- 
uted among its parts, and almost nothing left at the 
centre, for its action as a whole. It was the States 
that must levy and collect all taxes and imposts ; the 
States that must raise all military forces, and clothe, arm, 
equip, and organize them in regiments, with officers, up 
to colonel, of their own appointment ; the States that 
must (if they saw fit) provide the means and the man- 
dates for almost everything that the Congress of the 
Confederation might undertake to do. Congress had 
no revenue at its own command. It stretched no arm 
of authority to any citizen, through any judge or court- 
officer of its own, to make itself felt and respected as 
the real s^overnment of a real nation. It had 

^1 1-1 11 1 ■, Powerless- 

the sole right to declare war, but was de- nessof 

Congress. 

pendent on State legislatures for money, men, 

and arms. It had the sole right to make treaties with 

foreign powers, but was dependent on State legislatures 



252 THE MAKING OF A NATION. 

for an enforcement of the obligations of such treaties 
when made. It was authorized to contract public debts, 
but was dependent on State legislatures for means to 
pay even the interest on what it owed. It was made 
the tribunal of *' last resort " in all disputes between 
the States, but had no power whatever to enforce its 
decrees. 

Besides this utter want of efficient powers in the 
Congress of the Confederation, there were fatal weak- 
nesses in its make-up and its modes of action. Each 
State might send to it not less than two nor more 
than seven delegates, who cast, however, but one vote 
for their State. These delegates were paid by the 
Legislation States, and niggardliness reduced the number 
incongress. ^^^^ quite generally to two; sometimes none 
were sent. When a majority of the delegates of a State 
agreed on a question in Congress, they could cast its 
vote ; when they disagreed evenly and were tied, its 
vote was lost. Yet no'measure of importance could be 
adopted without the vote of nine States. How small 
an opposition might defeat any measure can readily 
be seen. And this feeble and fettered body was not 
merely the legislature of a general government, but was 
in itself the whole government, — a government with 
no executive hand or head, and no judicial arm. We 
cannot wonder that it lost prestige and respect; that 
service in it lost attraction for able and ambitious men ; 
that its meetings were neglected, even when grave mat- 
ters were in hand. We cannot wonder that the United 
Loss of States were less like one nation when the war 
presuge. ended than when it began, and grew less in 
that likeness so long as the Articles of Confederation 
were in force. 

143. Commercial Depression. Thus paralyzed in its 



UNDER ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION. 253 

general government, it was impossible for the country 
to recover prosperity when it recovered peace. The 
main causes of depression in it were causes which no- 
thing but an efficient national government could remove. 
It had not suffered a ruinous destruction of wealth or 
population in the war ; but the foreign com- ^^ 
merce of the country had been broken up, eign trade, 
and nothing could restore it but a responsible govern- 
ment, capable of making commercial treaties with foreign 
nations, capable of fulfilling the terms of such treaties 
when made, and capable of regulating the conduct of 
trade between the States. While they remained un- 
der British law the Americans had had free and large 
dealing with Great Britain and her other colonies, but 
were restricted in commerce with the remainder of the 
world. Now they had lost the advantages of the Brit- 
ish connection, and found no willingness in other na- 
tions, except France, Sweden, and the Netherlands, to 
arrange commercial treaties with them, because the 
observance of such treaties by the States could not be 
guaranteed. 

The internal commerce of the country was injured 
even more by the existing condition of things. Each 
State possessed the right to a protective tariff and a 
navigation act of its own, and could tax the commercial 
passing of ships and products from other States J^?^|enthe 
across its boundary lines. Some fierce out- s***®^- 
breaks of petty commercial warfare were the early result, 
especially between New York and its neighbors on both 
sides. 

144. Ruinous effects of irredeemable paper money. 
But the ruin of trade by these conditions was hardly so 
great a cause of suffering as the general economic break- 
down which the flood of irredeemable paper money, 



254 THE MAKING OF A NATION. 

issued by Congress and the States, had brought about. 
When the measurement of values is lost, as it is by the 
use of such fictitious money, a few shrewdly speculativ^e 
people are sure to make themselves rich at the expense 
of the community at large. The inevitable outcome, 
soon or late, is debt and poverty for the mass ; and the 
debt and poverty in the United States, after 
treatment the '* Continental currency " of the war time 

of debtors. , , . , i 

had run its course to worthlessness, were very 

great. Debt in those days was treated worse than we 

now treat crime. Debtors, no matter how innocent of 

dishonesty, were often imprisoned hopelessly for years ; 

and most of the prisons of the time were in a horrible 

state. The heartlessness of creditors was one of the 

provoking causes of a dangerous outbreak of rebellion 

that occurred in Massachusetts in 1786. Shays's 
Shays' s Re- ^ . 

beiiion, Rebellion — so named from its principal leader 

1786. .. 

— was an attempt to stop proceedings against 
delinquent debtors, by breaking up the sittings of the 
courts. Another object of the insurgents was to force a 
new issue of fictitious money in the form of irredeem- 
able notes. They would not believe that such so-called 
money had been the source of their troubles. They 
Paper thought it had been made worthless by con- 

money, spiracies against it, and that sharp laws com- 
pelling everybody to take it were all that could be needed 
to keep it good. This delusion was so common that it 
carried the elections of 1786 in seven States, and started 
them again upon fatuous experiments in making money 
with the printing-press. 

Of real money, in valuable coin, or bank promises 
payable in coin, the country had almost none. It had 
no coinage of its own, though Congress, in 1785, ap- 
proved and adopted a plan of coinage devised mainly by 



UNDER ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION. 255 

Gouverneur Morris, assistant to Robert Morris in the 
superintendency of finance. From that plan, to which 
Jefferson contributed some features, came the Decimal 
admirable system of decimal coins, based on ^^o^^^ge. 
the Spanish dollar, which this country has enjoyed, with 
little change, ever since it established a mint. But the 
mint was not created and coining undertaken until after 
the Congress of the Confederation passed away and a 
new national government took its place. 

145. Dread of a Strong General Government. — Im- 
pending Dissolution of the Union. 1786. Of the in- 
structed and thoughtful people of the States there was 
doubtless a large majority at all times who could see 
clearly that present happiness and a hopeful future for 
the country could never be secured without a more 
national union of its parts. There were some pure pa- 
triots of shrewd brain who could not see it so, Attitude of 
and Samuel Adams was one. Their dread of Id^ms^and 
a strong government was greater than their °*^®"- 
dread of anything else, and they would not accept it as a 
remedy for any public ill. The popular majority was 
with them for years, against Washington, Franklin, Jef- 
ferson, Madison, Hamilton, Jay, and most of the great 
leaders of the time. Three attempts to amend the worst 
features of the Articles of Confederation were made and 
failed, no amendment being possible without the concur- 
rence of every State. 

By 1786 an actual dissolution of the '* league of 
friendship " appeared to have begun. Rhode Island 
recalled her delegates from Congress, and would send 
no more. New Jersey refused flatly to pay any part of 
her quota of revenue needed for the general Dissolution 
government, and all the States together paid ^^^un. 
in that year but one fifth of the ;^2, 000,000 required. 



256 THE MAKING OF A NATION. 

Several States were raising troops in violation of the 
Articles of Confederation ; in New England there was 
talk of secession if an offer from Spain, of a treaty 
of commerce in exchange for a surrender of all claims 
to the navigation of the ]\Iississippi River below the 
Yazoo, should be refused ; while the settlers in Ken- 
tucky were threatening to put themselves under British 
protection if any such bargain were made. The ulti- 
mate crisis of the " critical period " had been reached ; 
and yet there was no visible chance of success for any 
open and direct proposition to strengthen the consti- 
tution of irovernment for the dissolvins: Union of the 
States. But happy circumstances arising in that most 
anxious year brought about the needed action in an 
indirect way. 

146. The Circumstances which led to a Constitu- 
tional Convention. 1785-1787. The circumstances 
which led to the framing of a constitution of really 
national government for the United States had their 
beginning in a conference at Mount Vernon, between 
commissioners from Virginia and Maryland, 
at Mount for the purpose of jointly regulating and ex- 

Vernon. . . r 1 -n. *^ -r^ • 

tendmg the navigation ot the Potomac River. 
The influence of Washington, Madison, and Jefferson 
brought that conference about, and it was probably the 
same influence which pushed further in the same direc- 
tion, first to bring Delaware and Pennsylvania into the 
discussion of a common commercial system, and, finally, 
to invite a convention of commissioners from all the 
States to consider the needs of their trade. A resolu- 
tion to that end, drawn by Madison, was adopted by the 
legislature of Virginia in January, 1786, and attempts 
were made to assemble the proposed convention at 
Annapolis on the nth of the following September. 



UNDER ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION. 257 

At the appointed time only five States had commissioners 
in attendance, and these thought it useless to take up 
the work for which they were convened. They Annapolis 
adopted, however, an address to the country, septemteT' 
prepared by Hamilton, urging- the appoint- ^^^^" 
ment of a new body of commissioners from all the 
States, to meet at Philadelphia in the coming May, not 
merely to consider the commercial situation, but to 
" devise such further provisions as shall appear to them 
necessary to render the constitution of the federal gov- 
ernment adequate to the exigencies of the Union." 
For some time there seemed to be no probability that 
more would come from this endeavor than came from 
the Annapolis meeting ; but as signs of anarchy thick- 
ened, people were driven to regard it with a desperate 
hope. Virginia gave a great lift to that hope in De- 
cember, when Washington consented to be one of seven 
commissioners to the proposed convention from that 
State, and Patrick Henry,^ Madison, Randolph, 

1 Ti/r 1 • 1 1 • • 1 TheVir- 

and Mason were named with him m the nota- giniaand 

111- TVT T Pennsyl- 

ble list. JNew Jersey acted next, and then vaniadeie- 

T^ 1 . . - - 11. gallons. 

Pennsylvania appointed a lamous delegation, 
including Franklin (home from P'rance in 1785, when 
Jefferson went out to take his place), Robert Morris, the 
great financier of the Revolution, Gouverneur Morris, 
who devised our decimal coinage, and James Wilson, a 
profoundly able jurist, who took a notable part in the 
subsequent work. A convention bringing such men 
together could hardly occur without some important 
result ; and Congress was moved by public opinion to 
make it an authorized body, which was done on the ist 

^ Patrick Henry opposed the movement, however, and refused 
the appointment. 



258 THE MAKING OF A NATION. 

of February, 1787. By that time six States had named 
delegates, and their example was followed presently by 
six more. Rhode Island, alone, would send none. 

147. The Work of the Convention. May-Septem- 
ber, 1787. The great Convention began its sessions at 
Philadelphia on the 25th of May, 1787. Besides those 
named already, the men of most distinction in its mem- 
bership were Hamilton (commissioned from New York, 
but tied up with two opposing associates), John Rutledge, 
from South Carolina, and John Dickinson, who had 
Organiza- changed his residence to Delaware. The gen- 
^^°^' eral standard of ability and character was very 

high. Washington was chosen president of the Conven- 
tion, and his wonderful influence ranks first among all 
the causes of success in its work. To prevent public 
wrangling over troublesome questions while its own 
discussions were going on, the Convention sat with 
closed doors, and allowed no report of its proceedings 
to be published; nor was anything known of its debates 
or votes for many years. 

The differences of opinion, disposition, and interest 
among the members were very great. Some came for 
the sole purpose of opposing any change that might pos- 
sibly reduce the political independence of the States ; 
but these were few. A large majority was found to 
be determined that some structure of positive nation- 
ality should be framed. The strong delegation from 
Virginia led proceedings firmly to that end. They gave 
Thevir- direction to the debate from the beginning, 
giniapian. |^y bringing forward a plan of government, 
drafted mainly by Madison, which swept the Articles 
of Confederation out of view, and turned the thought 
of the Convention to a work, not of mending and patch- 
ing, but of new construction throughout. It was a bold 



UNDER ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION. 259 

project, since nothing in the credentials of the dele- 
gates gave them authority to do more than revise and 
amend the existing Articles of Confederation ; but the 
majority of the Convention were not men who would 
enter on so momentous an undertaking with tied hands. 
The day after their discussions in committee of the 
whole began, they adopted the following : " Resolved, 
That it is the opinion of this committee that a national 
government ought to be established, consisting of a 
supreme legislative, judiciary, and executive." This de- 
termined and established at the outset the ^ national 
foundations of the scheme of government to men/pro- 
be framed. It was to be a national govern- ^®°*®^- 
ment ; it was to be a supreme government ; it was to be a 
government that should exercise all governing powers, 
making, adjudicating, and executing the laws within its 
sphere. 

This speedy settlement of the main question in dis- 
pute — between a national government and a mere 
" league of friendship " — did not bring the Convention 
to easier problems in its task. The most troublesome 
conflicts of opinion and feeling were still to be faced. 
First and worst among them came one from the dis- 
trust and anxiety which the smaller States felt in con- 
templating a national union with States larger both in 
population and wealth. How could they be protected 
from oppressive uses of national power by a few large 
States.-* At first they could see no safety for them- 
selves unless the existing equal vote of the States in 
legislation should be maintained. But that 
was a concession which the larger States could aterepre- 
not make. The latter insisted, and rightly, 
that there must be representation in the national legis- 
lature proportioned to population, and that it must 



26o THE MAKING OF A NATION. 

be a representation, not of States, but of the peo- 
ple, as citizens of the United States, choosing their 
representatives by their own direct votes. At last a 
happy compromise was found. The Convention had 
agreed already that " the national legislature ought to 
consist of two branches," and it was decided (by an 
extremely close vote) that the members of the first 
branch should be elected by the people of the several 
States, '' according to some equitable ratio of represen- 
tation," while those of the second branch should be 
chosen by the State legislature, and that in the second 
branch the States should have equal votes. ^ Thus our 
compro- ^^^ Houses of Gongrcss, the House of Re- 
Sate repre- P^esentatives, coming directly from the people, 
sentation. ^^^ ^YiQ Senate, coming from the States, were 
made up. After that agreement had been reached the 
smaller States felt assured of safety in the Union, and 
most of their delegates joined heartily with those who 
labored to make the new general government a sub- 
stantial one in sovereignty and strength. 

The next problem of great seriousness arose from the 
fact that some States contained large numbers of slaves 
and others had few or none. Were the slaves to be 
counted as part of the population entitled to represen- 
Compro- tation in Congress, or not ? South Carolina 
SavVrepre- insisted that they must be reckoned so, and 
sentation. vvould be hostile to the new Constitution if 
that were refused. North Carolina and Georgia were 
almost as imperative in the same demand. The propo- 
sition seemed intolerable to the northern delegates ; 
but to save their whole work from being wrecked on it, 

1 Constitution, Art I. sect. 2, clause 3, and sect. 3, clause i ; 
Amendment 14, clause 2. 



UNDER ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION. 261 

they consented at last to a representation in Congress 
for three fifths of the slaves.^ 

Another question concerning slavery was settled by 
another compromise. Thirteen years before this time, 
the First Continental Congress had declared with solem- 
nity, and with undoubted sincerity: "We will neither 
import nor purchase any slave imported after the first 
day of December next, after which time we will wholly 
discontinue the slave trade " (see sect. 104). But slave 
labor had been growing more profitable to the rice and 
indigo planters of South Carolina and Georgia since 
that time, and now they were fierce in opposition to any 
restriction of the traffic in slaves. They were likewise 
opposed to placing the regulation of commerce among 
the functions of the general government, which New 
England most ardently desired ; but were willing to 
yield that point if satisfied on the other. So a really 
shameful bargain was struck between the New England- 

ers and the planters of the far South, which 

. Gompro- 

left the African slave trade open for twenty miseon 

. slave trade, 
years — until 1808." This mercenary bargain 

in dealing with a great moral question was bitterly con- 
demned, and by no people more severely than by the 
illustrious Virginians of that day. 

A third concession to the slave-holding interest, des- 
tined in future times to be a dangerous cause Fugitive 
of irritation in the country, was embodied in a 3^*^^®*- 
provision for the recovery of persons ** held to service or 
labor in one State " and " escaping into another." ^ 

The greater difficulties encountered in framing the 
new constitution were overcome by the three important 

1 Constitution, Art. I. sect. 2, clause 3. 

2 Constitution, Art. I. sect. 9, clause i. 

^ Constitution, Art. IV. sect. 2, clause 3. 



262 THE MAKING OF A NATION. 

compromises : (i) representing the States, small and 
large, equally in the Senate of the United 

The throe ,^ / ^ • i n r ^ r ■< ^ 

great com- States ; (2) countmg three niths 01 the slaves m 

promises. . . . , . - 

apportionmg seats in the national House 01 
Representatives ; (3) prohibiting importation of slaves, 
but not until 1808. Stubborn differences of opinion 
appeared on many other points, but none that were se- 
riously threatening to the success of the Convention in 
its task. In this brief history we cannot trace its work 
in detail, nor dwell upon the features of the incompara- 
ble structure of federative national government which it 
designed and perfected for this republic of many united 
states. That is a political study that will need to be 
pursued elsewhere. 

148. The Struggle and the Victory for the New 
Constitution. September, 1787-July, 1788. The work 
of the Convention was finished on the 17th of Septem- 
ber, 1787. It was made a provision of the Constitution 
that it should be submitted to conventions specially 
elected in each State, and that when ratified by nine 
States it should become the Constitution of a general 

government for those States, even if rejected 

Submission , ,, . . ^ ^_, - , 

to the by the remainmo: four. Ihen, tor ten months, 

states. -' o ' 

the advocates of the Constitution, who took 
the name of Federalists, fought desperately with its op- 
ponents to win acceptance for it in the States. Rea- 
sonable argument was overwhelmingly on their side ; 
but prejudices, local jealousies, petty views of local in- 
terest, trivial fears, were enlisted easily on the other 
side and hard to overcome. Nothing less than unspar- 
ing and prodigious exertion on the part of the strongest 
men in the country could have achieved the victory 
that was won. The highest honors of that victory be- 
long to Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, who 



UNDER ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION. 263 

explained the provisions of the pending Constitution, 
and showed what their working would be, in a 
series of remarkable essays, published first in andMadi- 
a newspaper between October, I787, and June, 
1788, and collected afterward in a famous book entitled 
"The Federalist," which is, to this day, the best exposi- 
tion of the American Constitution, and one of <«TheFed- 
the ablest treatises on the principles of gov- ^^^^i^st." 
ernment that has ever been produced. Of 85 essays that 
make up ''The Federalist," Hamilton wrote 51, Madison 
29, and John Jay 5. The influence of these writings in 
bringing about the adoption of the Federal Constitution 
was very great. 

Little Delaware was the first State to ratify, on the 
7th of December, 1787. Pennsylvania followed on the 
1 2th of the same month, and New Jersey on the i8th. 
Georgia opened the new year by a unanimous Ratmca- 
ratification, January 2, and Connecticut came *^°"^' 
next, on the 9th. A sharper contest ensued in Massa- 
chusetts, where the Federalists carried a ratifying vote, 
on the 6th of February. Samuel Adams, who opposed 
the Constitution at first, yielded assent to it in the end. 
Maryland was carried more easily on the 28th of April, 
and South Carolina with some difficulty on the 23d of 
May. One State more would create a federal union of 
nine and give the Constitution effect ; but the Federal- 
ists were battling with little hope in all the remaining 
five. They did win two of the five in June, — New 
Hampshire on the 21st, Virginia on the 25th, — and 
they added New York on the 26th of July. The hard- 
est fight of all was in New York, where Hamilton, by 
sheer force of argument, during weeks of debate, turned 
a hostile majority of two thirds into a finally favoring 
majority of three. 



264 THE MAKING OF A NATION. 

So the Union under a national constitution was 
formed by eleven States. North Carolina held aloof 
from it until November, 1789, and Rhode Island until 
June, 1790. 

149. The Ordinance of 1787. The old Continental 
Congress, now about to disappear from history, had 
lately clothed itself with an unexpected final dignity by 
one really sovereign and greatly important act. That 
act was an ordinance, passed in July, 1787, for the 
organization and scovernment of the north vvest- 

The norUi- ^ ^ . . 

western ern territory which the Confederation had ac- 
quired from tne btates (see sect. 141). Ihe 
measure was pressed by a company organized in the 
interest of a large number of the officers and soldiers 
of the late war, who wished to make new homes for 
themselves in the west. General Rufus Putnam, Gen- 
eral Samuel Parsons, and Rev. ^lanasseh Cutler, of 
^lassachiisetts, were the leading promoters of this Ohio 
Companv, as it was named, and negotiations with Con- 
gress were conducted by the gentleman last named. 
He and his associates are credited with some of the 
wisest provisions of the ordinance, affecting the future 
of five great States. I: was provided that 
" schools and the means of education shall for- 
ever be encouraged ;" that "no person demeaning him- 
self in a peaceable and orderly manner shall ever be 
Guarantees Hiolested on account of his mode of worship 
ot freedom, or religious sentiments;" that "there shall be 
neither slaverv nor involuntary servitude in the said 
territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes ; " ^ 

1 The exclusion of shivery had been proposed by Jefferson, in 
1784, when he drafted an ordinance of government for the whole 
western territory, both north and south of the Ohio, which Con- 
gress did not adopt. 



rXPER ARTICI.KS OF CONFKDF.RATION. 265 

aiul that "the said torritor\' ami the States whieh may 
be formed therein shall lorexer remain a part of this 
confederacN' of the Uniteti States." These and other 
provisions were declared to be " articles of compact 
between the original States and the people and States 
in the said territory, and tore\er renuun unalterable, 
unless bv common consent." It was stipulated in the 
ordinance that not less than three nor more nvestates 
than iive States should be formed in the ter- *"°'®^- 
ritorv describetl. The result has been the formation of 
h\e, namely, Ohio. Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, and 
Illinois. 

In the beginning this Western Territory, as it was 
named, was placed under a single government, ami its 
first governor was General Arthur St. Clair. In C\^to- 
ber and November, 1787, a million and a half acres of 
land on the Muskingum and Ohio rixers were sold to 
the C)hio Company, three and a half millions to an 
associated organization of speculators, and two ni-gtsaies 
millions to a private buyer, at two thirds of a °^^^^- 
tlollar an acre. A great movement of emigration to 
these lands began at once, and settlements arose rap- 
idly along the northern banks of the Ohio. Marietta and 
Cincinnati (named Losantiville at first) were the towns 
of quickest growth. 

150. Election of George Washington for the First 
President of the Reconstituted United States. Before 
its dissolution, the old Congress milde provision for 
bringing the new Federal Constitution into operation, 
by directing that presidential electors should be chosen 
in January, 1789; that the electors should meet and cast 
their votes in February ; that the votes should be 
counted by the two Houses of the new Congress (to be 
elected meantime in the several States) on the first 



266 THE MAKING OF A NATION. 

Wednesday in iMarch (which fell that year on the 4th), 
and that the meeting place of the Congress for that pur- 
pose should be the city of New York. It was the 6th 
of April, however, before a quorum of the House and the 
Senate reached New York. On that day the electoral 
votes were counted, and Washington was found to be 
the unanimous choice for President, while John Adams 
had received a majority of the second votes cast and 
was chosen Vice-President thereby.^ 

TOPICS AND SUGGESTED READING AND RESEARCH. 

140. The " Critical Period." 

Topics and References. 

1. How the period following the war was made critical. Fiske, 
Critical Period, 55-63. 

2. Preparation and adoption of the Articles of Confederation 
(text in MacDonald, ii. 6-15). Curtis, i. 124-141 ; Am. Hist. 
Ass'n, 1894, 227-236; Fiske, Critical Period, 90-94; A^n. Hist. 
Leaf., 7, 20, 28 ; O. S. Leaf., 2. 

Research. — The Confederation compared with other federal 
unions, before and since. Hart, Introdiictiofi, 1-86. 

141. Cession of Western Territory by the States Claim- 
ing it. 

Topics and References. 

I. Claims of seven States to western territory. 2. Demand of 
other States for its cession to the Confederation. 3. Maryland's 
persistence in that demand. 4. Dates of the several cessions. 

1 As the Constitution provided then, two candidates were to be 
voted for by each presidential elector, without designating President 
and Vice-President. The largest number of votes (if a majority of 
the whole) elected the President: the next largest elected the Vice- 
President. This was changed by a constitutional amendment in 
1804. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 267 

Hinsdale, Old N. IV., ch. xi.-xiii. ; Donaldson, ch. iii. ; Roosevelt, 
T/w IVinning/m. 243-251 ; Fiske, Critical J^eriod, 187-196; King, 
161-173; Hart, Confemp^s, iii. 138-142; Af/i. Hist. Leaf., 22. 

Research. — Views of the time as to the future of the valley of 
the Mississippi. Madison, Letters, i. 136-140. 

142. "Weakness of the Confederation. 

Topics and References. 

I. Cause of defectiveness in the Articles of Confederation. 2. 
Dependence of the general government on the States. 3. The 
weakness of Conoress. 4. The slight opposition that might defeat 
any measure. 5. Resulting loss of character in Congress and the 
Confederation. Madison, Z^/Z^rj, i. 320-328 ; The Federalist, ^o. 
15, 21-22; Fiske, Critical Period^ g^-io^; McMaster, i. 130-139; 
Lodge, Hamilton, 36-46; Hart, Contemp'^s^ iii. 120-122. 125-137, 
177-182, 195-197. 

143. Commercial Depression. 

Topics and References. 

I. The causes of commercial depression. 2. Loss of British 
trade, and lack of power in the general government to establish 
commercial arrangements with other nations. 3. Commercial war- 
fare between different States. Curtis, i. 276-290; Fiske, Critical 
Period, 134-147; Bancroft, vi. 47-49, 136-153; Sumner, The Pl?ian- 
cierj ii. ch. xxiv. ; Weeden, ii. 816-819, 836-839, 843; McMaster, 
i. 205-208; M.OXSQ., Jefferson, 77-84; Gay, 48-55. 
Research. — The slight general distress in the country during the 

war. Sumner, The P^inancier, ii. ch^ xxix. 

144. Ruinous Effects of Irredeemable Paper Money. 

Topics and References. 

I. Effects of losing a measure of values. 2. Treatment of debt 
and debtors in those days. 3. Shays's Rebellion in Massachu- 
setts. — Its main objects. 4. Extent of the paper-money delusion. 
Madison, Letters, i. 243-245, 255-256; Fiske, Critical Period, 162- 
186; Bancroft, vi. 167-176; McMaster, i. 281-355, 400-404; Sum- 
ner, Ai)i. Currency, 50-54; Weeden, ii. 843-847; Hart, Contempts, 
iii. 183-184, 191-194. 



26S UNDER ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION. 

5. Scarcity of coined money. 6. Origin of our decimal system 
of coins. Roosevelt, J/^rr/V, 103-108; M cM aster, i. 187-200. 
Research. — Services of Robert Morris as Superintendent of 

Finance, 1781-85. Sumner, Morris^ ch. iii., and The Financier, ii. 

ch. xxiii. 

145. Dread of a Strong General Government. — Im- 
pending Dissolution of the Confederation. 

Topics and References. 

1. Dread of a central government felt by Samuel Adams and his 
followers. Hosmer, y^f^^/z/i-, 381-392 ; Hoist, United States, \. 2,0- 
39; Roosevelt, J/^rr/j, 128-132. 

2. Leading men who strove for a government of national author- 
ity and power. 3. Unsuccessful efforts to amend the Articles of 
Confederation. 4. Signs of an impending dissolution of the Con- 
federation. McMaster, i. 356-389 ; Lodge, Hamilton, 50-53 ; Wash- 
ington, X, 345-346, xi. 1-3, 12, 80-82 ; Hoist, Const. Law, 13-14 ; 
Madison, Letters, i. 169-173, 195-198, 201-202, 205-208, 229-230. 
Research. — i. Advances in religious freedom during this period. 

— Action in Virginia. Bancroft, vi. 154-159; Hunt, ch. ix. 
2. Conflicting views of New England and the western settlements 
on the question of the navigation of the Mississippi. Roosevelt, 
The Winning, iii. ch. iii. 

146. The Circumstances which led to a Constitu- 

tional Convention. 

Topics and References. 

I. The conference at Mount Vernon, 2. The convention at 
Annapolis and its appeal for a constitutional convention. 3. Re- 
sponse of Virginia and other States. — Action of Congress. Hunt, 
ch. X.; Bancroft, vi. 182-203; Fiske, Critical Period, 212-222; 
McMaster, i. 389-399; Elliot, i. 92-120; Gay, 55-63; Curtis, i. 
340-368 ; Schouler, i. 32-39. 

147. The Framing of the Constitution. 

Topics and References. 

I. Distinguished members ot the Constitutional Convention. 
2. Influence of Washington, its president. 3. Privacy of the pro- 
ceedings. 4. Determination of the majority, Virginia in the lead. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 269 

5. The first and fi^ndamental resolution. 6. The question of re- 
presentation, between large and small States : how compromised. 
7. The same question between slave States and free States: how 
compromised. 8. Questions relative to the slave trade and the gen- 
eral regulation of commerce : how dealt with. 9. Concession rela- 
tive to fugitive slaves. Madison, Papers^ ii.-iii. 685-1624 (or the 
same in Elliot, v. 5), and Lettei^s^ \. 343-355 ; Washington, xi. 128- 
156; Bancroft, vi. 207-276, 292-367 ; Curtis, i. 374-488, ii. 3-487; 
Federalist • Hoist, Const. Law, 16-24; Fiske, Critical Period^ 
222-305 ; McMaster, i. 438-453 ; Hunt. ch. xiii.-xiv. ; Gay, ch. vii.- 
viii. ; Roosevelt, Hd'orris, 133-165 ; Stille, ch. vii. ; Lodge, Hamilton, 
57-65 ; Schouler, i. 39-51 ; Hart, Cojitenip's, iii. ch. x. ; O. S. Leaf., 
70. 

Research. — i. The method devised for the election of President 
and Vice-President : its failure in working to realize the expec- 
tations with which it was planned. Hoist, Const. Law, 86-90; 
Bryce, i. 35-41 ; M2i6\son, Papers, 1119-1124, 1141-1150, 1152, 
1188-1211; Federalist, 68. 2. The fundamental difference be- 
tween the English system of government and that framed in the 
American Constitution. Bryce, i. 32-34, 237-238, and ch. xxv. 
3. Hamilton's plan of a constitution. Madison, Papers, iii. ap- 
pendix, xvi.-xxviii. 

148. Struggle and Victory for the New Constitution. 

Topics and References. 

I. Opposition to the Constitution. 2. The great and victorious 

struggle for it in the States. 3. Exertions of Hamilton, Madison, 

Jay, and others. — The essays of " The Federahst." 4. The States 

which ratified and when. 5. The States which held aloof. Elliot, 

i- 318-338; Bancroft, vi. 371-438, 452-462; Curtis, ii. 491-604; 

Fiske, Critical Period, ch. vii.; McMaster, i. 454-501; Hunt, ch. 

xv.-xvii. ; Gay, ch. ix. ; Tyler, Henry, ch. xviii, ; Hosmer, Adai7is, 

392-401; Y^odig^, Hamilton, 65-80; Schouler, i. 60-78; Hart, Con- 

te7np''s, iii. ch. xi. ; Johnston, A7n. Orations, i. 24-43. 

Research. — i. Grounds and motives of the opposition to the 

Federal Constitution. P^ord, ed.. Pamphlets, 1-23, 91-115, 272- 

275, 277-322 ; Madison, Papers, ii. 662-663 5 Washington, xi. 

183-186. 2. Importance of the fact that the Constitution was 

ratified by special conventions, and not by state legislatures. 

Hoist, Const. Law, 28. 



270 UNDER ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION. 

149. The Ordinance of 1787. 

Topics and References. 

I. Character and purpose of the ordinance, passed by the old 
Congress (text in O. S. Leaf., 13; Lamed, Ready Ref.j Mac- 
Donald, ii. 21-29). 2. The Ohio Company and its influence. 3. 
Important provisions of the ordinance, 4. The five States de- 
veloped under it. 5. First land sales and beginnings of settlement. 
Hinsdale, Old N. ^'., ch.xv. ; Cutler, i. ch. iv.-xii. ; Winsor, West- 
ward, ch. xiv. ; N. A. Rev. (Poole), April, 1876; Drake, Ohio Val- 
ley Stales, 1 53-1 72 ; Dunn, ch. v. ; King, ch. viii, ; Hart, Contemp''s, 
iii. 154-158; Donaldson, 149-159. 

150. Election of George Washington, First President 
of the Reconstituted United States. 

Topics and References. 

I. Action of the old Congress, providing for the presidential 
election. 2. Election of Washington and John Adams. Irving, 
iv. ch. xxxvii. ; Bancroft, vi. 466-472 ; McMaster, i. 502-503, 525- 
535; Hildreth, iv. 38-56; Schouler, i. 79-82. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE FOUNDING OF A NATIONAL GOVERNMENT. 1 789- 

1801.1 

151. Inauguration of President Washington. — Or- 
ganization of Government under the Federal Consti- 
tution. 1789. On the 23d of April President Washing- 
ton arrived at New York from Mount Vernon, and the 
ceremony of his inauguration was performed on the last 
day of the month. The ability and industry of Congress 
were taxed at once by the need of many important laws 
for organizing the new government and giving 

, . IT • • <-r.i /". Madison's 

authority and direction to its acts. Ihe Con- leadership, 

1789. 

gress proved to be a highly capable body, con- 
taining many experienced and strong men, foremost 
among them James Madison, of Virginia, who sat in the 
House of Representatives and exercised the leading influ- 
ence in its work. Before its first session ended, in Sep- 
tember, this hard-working Congress passed tariff and ton- 
nage acts, to provide revenue for the national treasury ; 
instituted three departments of administration work of the 
for the executive branch of government, defin- Jf"oJtresT 
ing their duties and powers ; planned and organ- ■'■^^^■ 
ized the judicial branch of government, establishing a 
system of federal courts ; confirmed the territorial legis- 
lation of the Continental Congress, by reenacting the 
great Ordinance of 1787 (see sect. 149), and agreed 
upon twelve constitutional amendments for submission 
to the States. 

1 See Map IX. 



2/2 thp: making of a nation. 

On most of these measures there were spirited debates, 

and nearly every issue that has risen since in American 

politics, between opposing interests in different parts of 

the country or opposing ideas, came to the surface then. 

The scheme of duties discussed in framing the first 

national tariff was so moderate as to seem insio^- 
First _ ..... , . 

national nificant now ; but it raised at once the question 

between duties levied solely for revenue and 

duties applied with a view to giving some substantial 

advantage, or " protection," to commodities produced at 

home against competing articles brought in from abroad. 

The theory of "protection" carried the day, but the 

practical application of it was exceedingly mild. 

A motion to tax the importation of slaves by a duty of 

ten dollars on each kindled instantly the feelino; 
First , .... ,.. 

slavery that grew more passionate in American politics 

question. ., r i i 

until, after more than seventy years, the cause 
of it perished in the flames of civil war. 

The three executive departments instituted were that 
of foreign affairs, called the State Department, the Trea- 
Pj„^ sury Department, and the Department of War. 

depart-^^* For his secretaries in these departments Wash- 
ments. ingtoii appointed Alexander Hamilton to the 

Treasury, Thomas Jefferson to the Department of State, 
and General Henrey Knox to that of War. As the coun- 
try was then situated, nothing else in its government 
was so important as a wise and strong handling of finan- 
cial affairs. In choosing Hamilton for that trust Wash- 
ington picked, without doubt, the one man in America 
who had, not only the grasp of needed knowledge, but 
the boldness, the energy, the convincinf]^ power 

Hamilton. ' . ^. 

to carry others with himself and accomplish 
what should lay, from the beginning, a sure foundation 
of credit and prosperity for the young republic of the 



FOUNDING OF A NATIONAL GOVERNMENT. 273 

United States. Congress left the gravest financial prob- 
lems of the hour to be studied by the Secretary of the 
Treasury, and when it reassembled in January, 1790, he 
submitted a report on the public debt and public credit 
which is monumental as a work of statesmanship in pub- 
lic finance. Jefferson, coming from France near the 
end of 1789, did not enter on the duties of his jefferson 
ofifice until the following March; meantime ^^"^ay. . 
John Jay, already named for Chief Justice of the Supreme 
Court, conducted the Department of State. 

Of the twelve constitutional amendments proposed 
by this first Congress, ten were ratified within the next 
two years. Nine of them were in the nature of Firstcon- 
a guarantee of certain fundamental rights, — lmend°"*^ 
free speech, religious freedom, jury trial, and "^®^*^- 
the like, — which the framers of the Constitution had 
omitted intentionally, believing it to be unnecessary. 
The tenth amendment was a concession to the wide- 
spread feeling that stood guard over "state rights." It 
declared that " the powers not delegated to the United 
States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the 
States, are reserved to the States respectively or to the 
people." 

152. Hamilton's Report on the Public Debt and on 
Public Credit. 1790. Simply stated, the whole argu- 
ment of Hamilton's famous report on the public debt 
was to demonstrate the sound policy of a plain, unflinch- 
ing, un quibbling honesty in the payment of every dollar 
of the public debt, however incurred and by whomsoever 
claimed. The debt of the late Confederation was found 
to be something more than ;^i;4,ooo,ooo, of 
which nearly $12,000,000 was tor loans made m confedera- 
Holland, France, and Spain. Nobody opposed 
a full payment of the foreign debt ; but concerning the 



274 THE MAKING OF A NATION. 

payment of large parts of the $42,000,000 claimed by 
creditors' at home, there were specious objections raised. 
Much of it was represented by certificates which had 
sunk in market value, as the prospect of their final pay- 
ment seemed to fade, and which speculators had been 
and were still buying up for small sums. Another con- 
siderable part was in Continental currency, the latest 
holders of which obtained it, probably, for some petty 
fraction of its nominal worth. Considering these facts, 
many people saw no reason for paying the Continental 
notes and certificates in full, according to the promise 
that they bore on their face. At the same time nobody 
could propose a practicable plan for determining how 
much of the promise should be repudiated and how much 
fulfilled. Hamilton's powerful reasoning prevailed. His 
plans for "funding" the whole debt, by an issue of 
Funding United States bonds bearing interest, payable 
the debt. ^|. (definite times, with a "sinking fund" of 
moneys set apart for the payment of the bonds, and 
with a due provision of additional revenues to guarantee 
the whole, was approved and the necessary measures 
were passed. 

But, besides the debts of the Confederation, there were 
$25,000,000 or more of debts which the several States 

had contracted in the prosecution of the War 
of state of Independence; and Hamilton contended 

that those should be assumed by the general 
government, because they represented expenditures for 
the common national cause. This part of his recom- 
mendation was violently opposed. The bitterest hos- 
tility came from those who saw that the assumption of 
these state debts would tend to strengthen and na- 
tionalize the general government, and who regarded such 
a consequence as one to be feared. On the other hand, 



FOUNDING OF A NATIONAL GOVERNMENT. 2/5 

in Hamilton's mind, and in the minds of those who 
shared his political views, that undoubted effect of the 
Assumption Bill gave the weightiest of reasons for carry- 
ing it through. On the merits of the argument, however, 
it could not be passed, and its final success was gained 
by a bargain which secured the needed votes. Oppor- 
tunity for the bargain was given by a lively struggle 
then in progress over the question of locating 
the national government in a capital subject to the national 
its own control. Certain southern Congress- 
men, opposed to the assumption of state debts, were so 
eager to plant the projected capital city on the Potomac 
that they arranged with the assumption party for an ex- 
change of votes which accomplished the desires of both. 
The whole war indebtedness of the country, both general 
and local, was taken in hand, for unhesitating payment, 
and American credit rose instantly high ; while the fed- 
eral union was powerfully cemented and nationalized by 
that sovereign act. From the other side of the transac- 
tion there came a board of commissioners who acquired 
the soil of the District of Columbia and planned the 
beautiful city that bears Washington's name. Both re- 
sults were eminently good ; but the method of attaining 
them was bad. It was denounced, and justly, at the 
time ; for great dangers in legislation are opened and 
corruptions encouraged by such trafficking of votes. 

153. The Slavery Question. — First Abolition Me- 
morials. 1790. The grim "slavery question," breeding 
an "irrepressible conflict " in the nation already, had its 
hearing in Congress again. Memorials received "from 
the people called Quakers," and from a " Pennsylvania 
Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery," of which 
Franklin was president, stirred up a passionate debate, 
and called out a committee report, which the House ofj 



2/6 THE MAKING OF A NATION. 

Representatives adopted, affirming the powerlessness of 
Death of Congress to interfere with slavery in the States. 
Franklin. Franklin's signature to the Pennsylvania memo- 
rial was one of his last acts. He died on the 17th of 
April, 1790. 

154. First Census. — First Patent Law, etc. 1790. 
At the second session of the First Congress, the first act 
to provide for a national census of population, the first 
naturalization act, the first patent act, and the first copy- 
right act, were passed. The policy embodied so early 
in the patent act, of giving a wise stimulation to the 
inventive genius of the people, and thus cultivating a 
keen attentiveness to economies of labor and time, has 
been of immeasurable influence in advancing the welfare 
of the country along material lines. The union of thir- 
teen States became complete while this session was in 
progress, by the tardy action of Rhode Island, which 
ratified the Constitution in June. North Carglina had 
done the same in the previous November. 

The census taken in 1790 showed a total population 
of 3,929,000, of whom 3,172,000 were white, 698,000 
were negro slaves, and 59,000 were free blacks. Of the 
white population, 1,900,000 were resident north and 
1,271,000 south of ** Mason and Dixon's line." All but 
40,000 of the slaves were held in the States south of 
Pennsylvania. 

155. The National Bank Question. 1790-1791. A 
third session of the P'irst Congress was opened in De- 
cember, in Philadelphia, which became the seat of gov- 
ernment for ten years, while the federal capital on the 
Potomac was being prepared. Again the leading sub- 
jects of debate and legislation were introduced by the 
fertile Secretary of the Treasury, who brought forward 
plans, (i) for a necessary enlargement of revenue by 



FOUNDING OF A NATIONAL GOVERNMENT. 277 

increased customs-duties and by an internal tax, called 
excise, and (2) for strengthening the organiza- 
tion of capital and credit in the country, besides 
aiding the financial operations of government, through 
the creation of a national bank. Legislation for the 
proposed excise tax, which touched nothing but distilled 
spirits, was adopted without much debate ; but the pro- 
ject of a national bank, to be connected in interest with 
the government, to be employed by it, and to be a 

moneyed power, more or less under its control, 

. , , - -. , . . , , - Objects of 

was violently opposed. In this, as in his lormer a national 

proposals, Hamilton aimed at the solidifying 
of the Union as a fabric of real nationality, and he roused 
again the hostility of those who thought it better to in- 
vigorate the local governments of the States than to 
raise over them a more sovereign government and unify 
them by its strong embrace. 

156. The Doctrine of " Implied Powers " in the Con- 
stitution. That antagonism between two political views, 
in which state sovereignty and national sovereignty were 
the opposing aims, took on a new phase from Hamilton's 
argument in support of his project of a national bank. 
Madison, Jefferson, and others contended that the Con- 
stitution gave Congress no authority to charter banks, 
and cited the tenth article of the recent amendments, 
which declares that *' the powers not delegated to the 
United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it 
to the States, are reserved to the States respectively or 
to the people." In reply Hamilton pointed to the eighth 
section of the first article of the Constitution, 

The 

which sets forth, in seventeen clauses, the "elastic 

c1riis6 " In 

powers expressly eriven to Cons^ress, and adds the Con- 
^ , , , . ,. stitutlon. 

an eighteenth clause (known since as the "elastic 

clause"), giving it the broad, undefined power "to make 



278 THE MAKING OF A NATION. 

all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying 
into execution the foregoing powers." The proposed 
bank, he argued, is a necessary and proper instrument for 
government use in borrowing money, paying debts, hand- 
ling revenue, and providing for the general welfare. 
Hence the power to create it is implied. 

This doctrine of "implied powers" in the Constitu- 
tion — a doctrine that gives elasticity to that funda- 
mental code, making it capable of indefinite stretching, 
by free interpretation — opened a new breach between 
the men who wanted a strong nation and the men who 
cared most for strong States. The division then begun 
has run through American politics ever since, ranging 
"Strict" ^^ ^^^ ^^^^ those whose opinions tend toward 
constrSf-^" ^ ''strict construction of the Federal Constitu- 
^^°"- tion," to limit the powers it confers, against 

those on the other side who construe it with partiality 
for strong claims. The latter were successful with the 
bank bill in Congress and successful in satisfying the 
scruples of the President, who signed the bill after care- 
fully weighing the constitutional arguments on both 
sides. Chartered for twenty years, the bank 

The first 

National was founded with a capital of ;^20, 000,000, the 

Bank. 1 1 t m r ■ 1 

government holding $2,000,000 of its stock. 
Its principal seat was in Philadelphia, but eight branches 
were placed in other cities, and the helpfulness expected 
from the bank by the business interests of the country 
was given in full. 

The country, in fact, was realizing already immense 

effects of good from the great political change 

Influence • , i i ^t-i . i • • n 

of the new it had underofone. Ihe steadymo^ influence 
poUtlcal ^ , ° ^ ^ ° ., 

Bystem, of the new system of orovernment on all s^en- 

1789-1792. , ^^ ■ 11-1T.1 

eral conditions was not to be denied. Internal 
trade, no longer troubled at state boundary lines, was 



FOUNDING OF A NATIONAL GOVERNMENT. 279 

beginning to flow in beneficent streams. Foreign com- 
merce was reviving in the atmosphere of public and 
private credit which Hamilton's wise measures had dif- 
fused ; shipping enterprise was active again ; production 
of every kind was finding fresh encouragements, and 
prosperity was reaching all districts and every class. 
But a speculative spirit was wakened, also, that would 
do mischief in the end. 

157. Vermont and Kentucky admitted to the 
Union. 1791. At this time the Union received its 
first accession of new States. Vermont and Kentucky 
were admitted as its fourteenth and fifteenth members 
in February, 1791. Since 1777 Vermont had maintained 
an independent existence as a politically foreign State. 
Its territory had been in dispute between the royal pro- 
vinces of New Hampshire and New York, but 
mostly settled under what were known as " the claimants 

-NT TT 1 • >> A 1 1 • • • to Vermont. 

New Hampshire grants. A royal decision m 

1764 gave the disputed district to New York, and the 
government of that province undertook to set aside the 
New Hampshire grants. This provoked the '' Green 
Mountain boys" to resist. In 1777 they organized the 
government of an independent State and named it Ver- 
mont, The new State applied repeatedly to the Con- 
tinental Congress for admission to the Confederation, 
and was kept out by the influence of New York. Not- 
withstanding these rebuffs, and though tempted by the 
British authorities in Canada, the Vermonters cooperated 
with the States of the Confederation throughout the 
Revolutionary War. Terms were arranged finally with 
New York, in October, 1790, and Vermont was received 
into the union of States. 

Kentucky had been governed hitherto as a district of 
Virginia, but its settlers, now multiplying rapidly, had 



28o THE MAKING OF A NATION. 

obtained the consent of that State to their poHtical sepa- 
ration, and were to organize their distinct government 
in June, 1792. Congress, in advance, decreed their ad- 
mission, to take place at that time. 

158. Hamilton and the policy of "Protection to 
Home Industries." 1791. The Second Congress, as- 
sembled in October, 1791, took no measures of great 
moment in hand. Hamilton wished to round out his 
economic policy by a systematic measure of "protec- 
tion," for the upbuilding of home manufactures, and 
urged his project in an elaborate report. It contem- 
plated not only a thoroughgoing "protective tariff," but 
likewise a system of bounties to encourage productive 
enterprise ; of premiums for useful inventions ; of liberal 
appropriations for the building and improvement of roads 
and canals ; and, generally, of governmental stimulation 
to productive industries wherever it could be applied 
with effect. For the needed authority Hamilton ap- 
pealed again to what he held to be "implied" in the 
Constitution, though not expressed. In this use of it, 
the doctrine of implied powers became more obnoxious 
than ever to "strict constructionists," especially as lead- 
internaiim- ^"» toward a policy of " internal improvements " 
provements. ^^lat might be of illimitable scope. Congress 
took no action on this report ; but a complete set of 
policies for future political parties, and of arguments for 
future politicians, was stored up in the document and 
came finally into use. 

.159. Indian War. — Harmar's and St. Clair's de- 
feats. 1790-1791. Some increase of the small fed- 
eral army was made necessary at this time by a war with 
the northwestern Indians, conducted so badly that two 
appalling disasters had occurred. In the first instance 
an expedition commanded by General Harmar suffered 



FOUNDING OF A NATIONAL GOVERNMENT. 281 

defeat with terrible slaughter in a fight on the Maumee 
(October, 1790) ; in the second, a larger force, of some 
1400 militia and regulars, led by the governor of the 
Territory, General St. Clair, into the depths of the wil- 
jlerness, was surprised and overwhelmed by the savages 
(November 4, 1791), as Braddock's had been, and was 
more than half destroyed. Fresh forces were now raised, 
and the command was given to General Anthony Wayne, 
who subdued the hostile tribes in the course of the next 
three years. 

160. Reelection of President 'Washington. 1792. 
The term of President Washington would expire in the 
spring of 1793, and he longed to be released from the 
cares of his ofifice, but yielded to appeals from all sides 
and allowed himself to be named for a second term. 
Again he was chosen unanimously, and again the next 
highest number of votes was given to John Adams, re- 
electing him Vice-President, over George Clinton, of New 
York. 

161. The Arraying of Political Parties, Federalist 
and Anti-Federalist (afterwards called Republican). 
1793. There were two political parties in the country 
now, still called P'ederalist and Anti-P'ederalist, but 
arrayed with more distinctness than hitherto, and mainly 
on lines which divided Americans in their politics for half 
a century to come. Washington had tried to conduct 
a non-partisan administration ; but even he could only 
hold himself above partisan feelings, while his two chief 
ministers and advisers, Hamilton and Jefferson, led the 
rallying of political opinion in the country on opposing 
sides. Hamilton's measures, aims, and doctrines brought 
the cleavage about, as we have seen. The Constitution 
was no longer in question ; its acceptance by everybody 
was complete. Disputes in politics now were over the 



2S2 THE MAKING OF A NATION". 

meanings of its language, — the constructions to be put 
on it, — the powers that it o:ave to the s^eneral 

The new ^ , , . .^ , . , r 

disputes in o^overnnient and the functions that it leit to 

politics. ^ ^ 

the States. In these disputes many former 
FederaHsts became Anti-Federahsts, Madison, the very 
" Father of the Constitution," as he has been called, 
being one. Jefferson, who was in France during the 
framing of the Constitution, was foremost of all in op- 
posing the course given to the government by Hamilton's 
strong hand. 

The opposition was not only to Hamilton's measures 
and to his constitutional doctrines, but to a monarchical 

inclmation that was believed to be lurkinsf in 

Hamilton's . ^ 

distrast of Federalist minds. Hamilton never concealed 

democracy. . . . . i -r- t i i-' 

his admiration tor the Ensflish Constitution ; but 
he knew that the government of the United States could 
never take on a monarchical form, and there is no reason 
to suppose that he aimed at that result. He was distrust- 
ful of democracv, however, — afraid to have the sfovern- 
ment of the country fall under the control of the people 
at large, — and wished to strengthen as much as possible 
the influence of certain classes, whose wealth, or busi- 
ness interests, or education would make them careful in 
political affairs. Those classes formed the bulk of the 
party that rallied round him, and its spirit was essen- 
tially aristocratic, without doubt. It was natu- 

Jefterson's ,' .. , ,ii. i t- 

faithintiie rally antagonistic to those who believed, as Jet- 
ferson believed, in the rightful sovereignty of 
the whole people, and who had faith in the training 
of the whole people to prudent and wise action in public 
affairs. 

The antagonism between the two parties heated more 
animosity than ever appears in politics now. The coun- 
try was trying a momentous experiment in government, 



FOUNDING OF A NATIONAL GOVERNMENT. 283 

never tried on so large a scale before. The statesmen 
who formed and led opposmg political parties were grop- 
ing nearly in the dark, guided mostly by theories, and 
they were constantly alert with suspicions and fears. 
Their judi^ment of motives was warped by their 

.•1 T ,1- i-i. Unjust sus- 

nervous alarms. It was beheved seriously by picionson 
Jefferson and his followers that Hamilton and 
John Adams and the Federalists generally were a band of 
conspiring monarchists, who worked insidiously to break 
the republic down and make lords of themselves. In turn, 
the Hamiltonians were convinced that Jefferson and his 
leading associates were mere demagogues, striving reck- 
lessly for power as the leaders of a mob. We know now, 
from the private correspondence of these men, and from 
other revelations of them, that such notions were utterly 
unjust. Hamilton, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, 

. Patriotism 

and their colleasfues m the lead of the contend- on both 

sides. 

ing parties were all patriotic statesmen, of the 
high class in ability and character ; but they represented 
two orders of mind, and they looked at public questions 
from two points of view. 

Even those who reject the main political doctrines of 
Hamilton may think it was best for the country that his 
view, and not Jefferson's, prevailed in the beginnings of 
the government. The effect of his measures, which 
tended powerfully to consolidate and nationalize our fed- 
eral union at the outset, and to make the supremacy of 
its general government felt, would seem to have been a 
need at the time. The state jealousies and the theories 
of "State rights" and ** State sovereignty," which op- 
posed those measures, did mischief in later times, but 
they never again had power to do such harm to the 
nation as they might have done if carried into practice 
and precedent then. 



284 THE MAKING OF A NATION. 

At the same time, it can be seen that there were and 
are serious dangers in Hamilton's doctrines, pressed, as 
Dangers on ^c was disposed to press them, to the extreme, 
both sides. They can easily be carried so far as to make too 
much of government, — assign too many duties and 
powers to it, — make it what is called a '* paternal govern- 
ment," undertaking things that ought to be done by the 
people for themselves. Hamilton would probably have 
carried them too far in those paternal directions, if he 
had had his way fully ; and he would have centralized the 
government too much, taking local matters out of local 
control much more than is good for the political train- 
ing of the people. Jefferson and the Jeffersonians were 
right in discerning those tendencies, and right in their 
distrust of the anti-democratic spirit of the Federalist 
party. Hamilton and the Hamiltonians were equally 
right in fearing that the policy advocated by their oppo- 
nents would cause a dangerous slip backward toward the 
feebleness of the old Confederation, from which they had 
just escaped. There was reason and right in the opin- 
The parties ^^^^ ^"^ feeling of both parties ; there was dan- 
check^^o* ger in both when they ran their inclinations to 
each other, ^-^q extreme. They were a needed check upon 
each other, and the same checking and counter-checking 
of the same opposing tendencies has been a natural 
necessity in American politics ever since. 

162. The French Revolution in American Politics. 
1789-1793. Antagonism between the two parties was 
intensified, soon after the beginning of Washington's 
second term, by excitements rising out of the terrible 
revolution then maddening France. A warm sympathy 
with the revolutionary movement had been universal in 
the United States at first. There was a certain Ameri- 
can exultation in it, because it came as a sequel to the 



FOUNDING OF A NATIONAL GOVERNMENT. 285 

American Revolution, and that feeling was increased 
by the prominence of the part taken by Lafayette. But, 
as the Revolution ran its awful course and La- American 
fayette was driven to flight, and as the ruthless- towSl 
ness of the rising Jacobin party was more and ^'*^<'8- 
more displayed, a strong reaction was produced in con- 
servative minds. To Federalists, generally, the revolu- 
tionists seemed to be dragging France into hopeless 
anarchy, while Anti-Federalists were still able to look 
upon them as heroic champions of the rights of man. 

163. Prance and England at War. — " Citizen Ge- 
net." 1793. News came in the spring of 1793 that the 
French revolutionists had declared war with England, 
and this was followed by the arrival of a new minister 
from France, sent to demand aid from the United States. 
Our government then had troublesome questions to face, 
because the treaty of 1778 with the king of France 
pledged help to him in defending his possessions on this 
side of the sea. Was that treaty binding now, was the 
since the royal government that made it had rrance^"^ 
been overthrown, and since France was not de- ^^"^^"s? 
fensively but aggressively at war ? Washington and his 
advisers decided, after considering these questions with 
care, that they were justified in taking a neutral stand. 
Jefferson, as Secretary of State, seems to have acquiesced 
in that decision ; but the mass of his party was so en- 
thusiastic in friendship for France, and so hostile to 
England, that the neutrality proclaimed by the President 
was hard to preserve. " Citizen Genet," as the new 
French minister was styled, received such extravagant 
demonstrations of welcome that he was badly misled, 
imagining that the people would overrule their govern- 
ment, and allow him to push them into war. He took 
a defiant attitude toward the government ; commis- 



286 THE MAKING OF A NATION. 

sioned privateers ; established prize courts in French 
Conduct of consulates ; enlisted seamen and troops ; bought 
oSe?^'^ munitions of war ; and, finally, was said to have 
^'^^^' threatened to appeal to the people against the 

action of the President. This latter insolence he denied ; 
but there seems to be good evidence that the charge 
was true. His conduct angered all Americans of proper 
feeling, and the government was supported by public 
opinion in demanding his recall. He never returned to 
France, however, but married and was settled quietly in 
New York for the remainder of his life, after being 
superseded early in 1794. 

164. Enmity between Jefferson and Hamilton. 
1793. Jefferson was then no longer Washington's Sec- 
retary of State, having resigned at the end of 1793. The 
opposition between him and Hamilton had grown to 
enmity, and, as the latter prevailed oftenest in the cab- 
inet counsels, Jefferson found himself uncomfortably 

placed. He retired to private life, but still ex- 
of Jeffer- erciscd the leading influence in his party — the 

''Democratic-Republican" party, as the Anti- 
Federalists were now named. For many years their 
organization was spoken of commonly as the Republican 
party, and its distinctness from the later political party 
of that name must be kept carefully in mind. In after 
years it preferred to be called, as it is now, the Demo- 
cratic party. 

Hamilton remained in the government for more than 
Retirement ^ Y^^^ after Jcffcrson's retirement ; then he, 
toifms. ^*^^^' withdrew ; but continued to exercise a 

powerful influence in jniblic affairs. 

165. Impending War with England. — Peace Mis- 
sion of Chief Justice Jay. 1793-1794. The situation 
of the country, between the powers at war, was made 



FOUNDING OF A NATIONAL GOVERNMENT. 287 

difficult by the conduct of both. luigland seemed de- 
termined to regard the United States as practically the 
ally of France, while the French were angry because 
that alliance was refused. The rights of neutrals in 
trade with countries at war was not defined then by gen-- 
eral-ngreement as it has been since, and many 
questions were in dispute. The English, being rights of 
masterful at sea, endeavored always to put nar- 
row limits on neutral rights, and the French followed 
their practices as far as they could. J5ut the naval weak- 
ness of the latter compelled them to invite neutral ships 
to undertake the commerce of their West India colonies, 
which they had jealously kej)t to themselves in times of 
peace. This opened to the Americans an immensely 
profitable and extensive trade ; but luigland maintained 
that war could not create a commercial privilege not 
existing before, and numerous American vessels engaged 
in the French West Indian trade were caught by her 
cruisers and condemned by English courts. 

This, however, provoked less feeling than another 
English practice of the time. The activity of American 
shipping was causing a great demand for sailors in Amer- 
ican ports, at higher wages than the luiglish British 
paid, with better treatment, and numerous de- f^p^eM^*^ 
sertions from luiglish ships were induced. ™®"*' 
Complaining that American courts and American law 
gave them no proper help to recover such deserters, the 
English government directed its naval officers to search 
American ships for them and take them wherever found. 
Many who claimed to l)e American citizens were "im- 
pressed " in this exasperating manner; for nativity was 
hard to prove, as between luiglishmen and Americans, 
and England had never conceded the right of a born 
subject to cast off his allegiance to her crown. 



288 THE MAKING OF A NATION. 

It had been hard enough before for Americans to 
endure the continued holding of their western forts 
by British garrisons, and to bear what they beUeved to 
be maUcious tampering with western Indians by some of 
the officers at those forts. Now that a new cause of 
bitter feehng was added to the old, there seemed 
ton's effort to be little possibility of avoiding war. Wash- 
ington, however, made one last, earnest effort 
for peace. With authority from Congress, he commis- 
sioned the Chief Justice, John Jay, as a special envoy, to 
negotiate with the British government for more friendly 
relations ; and Jay departed on his mission in May, 1794. 

166. " Whiskey Rebellion " in Pennsylvania. 1794. 
At that time peace at home was threatened by rebellious 
opposition in western Pennsylvania to the excise. There, 
and in western North Carolina and Virginia, the conver- 
sion of grain into whiskey afforded to the farmers, in 
and beyond the mountains, the best means of marketing 
their crops. Hence the tax on distilled spirits was espe- 
cially resented in those parts of the country. In the 
summer of 1794 the riotous demonstrations in Pennsyl- 
vania became so rebellious that Washington, by procla- 
mation, called out about 13,000 militia, placed them under 
General Henry Lee, then governor of Virginia, and sent 
them to the scene of trouble, along with commissioners 
appointed to deal with the insurgents and investigate 
their grounds of discontent. This strong measure was 
effective ; the whiskey rebellion collapsed ; the authority 
of the government was vindicated, and respect for it was 
notably raised. 

167. The Jay Treaty with England. 1794-1796. 
Mr. Jay's negotiations resulted in a treaty, signed at Lon- 
don November 19, 1794, which did not reach the United 
States till the following March. Its provisions (except- 



FOUNDING OF A NATIONAL GOVERNMENT. 289 

ing one article, relative to West India trade) were not 
known to the public till after it had been ratified by the 
Senate, at a special session held in June. Then a tem- 
pest of rage, in every part of the country, but especially 
at th,e south, burst on all who had to do with the making 
of the treaty or accepting its terms. It was not such an 
arrangement with England as any American statesman 
of the time would have made if the circumstances of 
the country had not been what they were. Washington 
signed it after long hesitation ; for, though it did not go 
near to the bottom of the causes of quarrel between Eng- 
land and the United States, it was a first step toward 
that end. It secured the surrender of the western forts 
in June, 1796. It provided for a payment, on one hand, of 
the disputed debts to British creditors, and of indemnity, 
on the other hand, for recent illegal captures 

of American ships.^ It established a solemn of the 
, , ... treaty, 

agreement between the two nations that private 

debts should never thereafter be sequestered in war. It 

provided for joint commissions to determine the disputed 

boundaries in America. But it did not bind England to 

stop impressments from American ships. It 

. ^ . Objections 

opened the ports of the United States to British to the 
. . . . . . . treaty. 

ships, in return for privileges m the British West 

Indies that were thought to have no worth. It secured 

no compensation for slaves set free by the British in the 

War of Independence and taken with them when they 

left. For these and other shortcomings the treaty was 

raged against, as a piece of cowardly truckling to Great 

Britain, worse in effect than any consequence of war. 

^ Under these provisions the United States ultimately received 
about $6,000,000 in indemnity for illegal captures, and paid less 
than $3,000,000 on British debts owed at the outbreak of the 
Revolution. Schouler^ ii. 27. 



290 THE MAKING OF A NATION. 

Gradually a reaction of opinion took place, and many of 
those who had denounced the treaty came to see that its 
acceptance was wise. 

168. Important Events in the West. 1795-1796. 
The Jay treaty gave deep offence to France ; and 
Spain, too, complained. After long efforts, a treaty with 
the latter country had just been concluded (October, 

179;), which would free the navigation of the 

Navigation ^,. ". . . , ^ ^ ... 

oitheMis- Mississippi and give important privileges to 
American merchants at New Orleans. Spain 

now threatened to repudiate it, because of what she 

claimed to be inconsistent agreements with England ; 

but in the end the important Spanish treaty came into 

effect. 

On the 1st of June, 1796, Tennessee, the sixteenth 

State — the second formed in the great interior valley — 
was admitted to the American Union, and An- 

Admlsslon , _. , - n r ■, ^ 

oiTennes- drew Jacksou, its first federal representative, 

see, 1796. . 

came to Congress in the fall of that year. On 
that same ist of June, British garrisons marched out and 
American garrisons marched in to the western forts of the 

United States. Soon afterward the Mississippi 
western was Opened to free navigation by the flatbe')ats 

lortS, 1796. r ^ 1 f .i' r^i • 1 - ■^ 

01 traders from the Ohio and its tributaries, 
and they could market their products from the Spanish 
town of New Orleans. The west was coming into 
American history with quick strides. 

169. Retirement of "Washington. — Election of John 
Adams. 1796-1797. \\\ashington was now making 
glad preparations to quit the presidential seat. He could 
not yield again to the appeals that were made to him 
for another term of public service, and his positive deci- 
sion was announced on the 17th of September, 1796, by 
the publication of his '* Farewell Address," — a noble 



FOUNDING OF A NATIONAL GOVERNMENT. 291 

utterance of wise counsel to his countrymen, which 
can never lose its impressive weight and force ^ashine- 
in the minds of the American people so long ^?Fa^reweu 
as they do not lose their sense of truth and -^^"irfiss." 
right. It is especially a most solemn admonition to the 
country to beware of factiousness and violence in party 
spirit ; to discourage sectional jealousies and antago- 
nisms ; to avoid entanglement in the policies and politics 
of the Old World ; — every one of which warnings bears 
all the wisdom now that it bore when Washington 
wrote. 

In the presidential election that followed, John Adams 
and Thomas Pinckney were the understood candidates 
of the Federalists (no, formal nominations being made in 
those days), while the Republicans, or Democrats, were 
united in desiring to elect Thomas Jefferson, but divided 
somewhat in their second choice. When the electoral 
votes were counted, Adams was found to have received 
71, and Jefferson 68, which made Adams President and 
Jefferson Vice-President. 

170. Quarrel and Hostilities with France. 1797- 
1798. President Adams, inaugurated March 4, 1797, 
kept the cabinet of his predecessor, which proved to be 
a mistake. Its members could not throw off the power- 
ful influence of Hamilton, even after the retire- continua- 
ment of that masterful statesman from public Hamilton's 
life, and troublesome frictions in the govern- *"*i^ence. 
ment and in the Federalist party were produced. At 
the outset, the new administration had serious ill-feelings 
in France to face. Our minister there, from 1794 until 
late in 1796, had been James Monroe, a Republican, 
warm in friendship with the P'rench republicans and 
strongly opposed to the treaty with England negotiated 
by Mr. Jay. His course had not been satisfactory to 



292 THE MAKING OF A NATION. 

President Washington, and he had been recalled, General 

C. C. Pinckney being sent in his place. The French 

government, already bitter in feeling toward this country, 

resented the change, and refused to receive the 

Minister . . , . , . . ^^ 

Pinckney new minister, ordering him out of r ranee, 
of France, President Adams had news of this affront be- 

1797. 

fore the middle of the month (March, 1797) 
in which his presidency began, and called a special 
session of Congress to take such measures as it seemed 
to demand. Hostile acts on the part of the PVench 
authorities, in lawless seizures of ships and goods, were 
increasing from day to day, and war appeared inevitable ; 
but the President and the more sober-minded of his party 
friends sought anxiously for mean^ to avoid a resort to 
arms. Congress sanctioned the appointment of three 
envoys extraordinary, who should convey to France the 
wish of the American government to deal fairly with its 
complaints. John Marshall and Elbridge Gerry were 
associated with Pinckney, the rejected minister, in this 
important mission, and the three reached Paris in the 
fall of the year. 

Unofficially, the envoys were treated courteously, but 
no official hearing was given to them for months. Mean- 
while they were beset by three emissaries from 

Talley- . . 

rand's em- Talleyrand, the French minister for foreisrn af- 

Issarles, . 

X. Y. z., fairs, who o^ave them to understand that thev 

1797-1798. . -^ 

could hope for nothing unless they placed a 
large gift of money in Talleyrand's hands for the men 
who were then at the head of the French government 
(styled the Directory), besides making a loan of some 
millions to the public treasury of France. As they 
spurned such overtures, their mission was futile, and 
their reports of the rascally proposals, and of the treat- 
ment they had undergone, roused intense feeling in the 



FOUNDING OF A NATIONAL GOVERNMENT. 293 

United States when published, in April, 1798. In the 
publication of their despatches the three emissaries of 
Talleyrand were not named, but designated as X. Y. Z. 

That a serious war did not follow was only because the 
French government soon manifested a different state of 
mind. It had been intoxicated for two years past by the 
prodigious achievements of its young general, Napoleon 
Bonaparte ; but Bonaparte had led his army on a wild 
expedition to Egypt and Syria, and appeared more than 
likely to lose it there. A formidable coalition of Euro- 
pean powers was armed against the dreaded republic, and 
it had enough fighting in prospect on the other side of 
the Atlantic without pushing its quarrel in America. 
But the war spirit kindled by the "X. Y. Z. Correspond- 
ence " raged fiercely in the United States for some time. 
The tide of public feeling was with the Federalists ; the 
Republicans were borne down. Military preparations 
were hurried on, and Washington was appointed Mimary 
commander-in-chief, with Hamilton next in tion^Sd 
command. For its navy the country had three Sg^ts 
lately finished frigates, the Constitution, the ^^^^' 
Constellation, and the United States ; but vessels were 
bought and adapted to naval use, and four small squad- 
rons were formed, while a swarm of privateers was let 
loose on French merchant ships. The Constellation 
fought sharp battles with two French frigates, one of 
which, L'Insurgente, she captured, while the other es- 
caped. These were the only important engagements of 
the war. 

171. The Alien and Sedition Acts. 1798. The 
Federalists, now strong in popular favor, were puffed up, 
as we may say, with too much of a sense of power, and 
adopted high-handed measures against 'their opponents, 
as parties in such circumstances are apt to do. On both 



294 THE MAKING OF A NATION. 

sides, the political press of those days was indecent in 
abuse and slander of public men, and some foreigners 
employed on Republican newspapers were especially 
venomous in the use of their pens. In exasperation, the 
Federalists, controlling Congress, passed acts which struck 
with blind rage at the freedom of the press and other 
sacred rights. One, known as the Alien Act (June 25, 
1798), empowered the President, for two years, to expel 
from the country any alien whom he judged to be " dan- 
gerous to its peace and safety," and to imprison any who 
refused to obey his order to depart. The power was 
never used, but the creation of it was justly alarming to 
the public mind. Another startling^ and dangerous mea- 
sure was the Sedition xA.ct (July 14, 1798), which made it 
a crime to combine and conspire in opposition to any mea- 
sure of the government " directed by proper authoritv : " 
and which also made it criminal to " write, print, utter, or 
publish" "any false, scandalous, and malicious writing 
or writings against the government of the United States, 
or either House of the Congress of the United States, or 
the President." Under these acts there were several 
prosecutions, which harmed the authors of the law more 
than its victims. 

172. The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions. 
1798. If the Federalists were carried in one wrong di- 
rection by an evil party spirit, to a serious threatening of 
civil liberty, the Republicans, in their opposition, went at 
least equally far on another vicious line. Jefferson and 
Madison prompted some of their party to advance the 
constitutional theory that each State has a right to judge 
for itself whether acts of the £:eneral scovernment are or 
are not within the limit of the powers delegated to that 
government, anc> the consequent right, when such acts, 
in its judgment, are wanting in authority, to declare them 



FOUNDING OF A NATIONAL GOVERNMENT. 295 

"void and of no force." Resolutions applying this doc- 
trine to the Alien and Sedition laws, and pro- 
nouncing them void, were adopted by the legis- nuiimca- 
lature of Kentucky in November, 1798. Their 
authorship was not known at the time, but Jefferson, 
some years afterward, acknowledged them to be his. At 
nearly the same time the Virginia legislature adopted a 
series of resolutions, drawn by Madison, which set forth 
a somewhat similar but more guarded view of state rights. 
Madison lived long enough to see the Union brought into 
great peril by the ''nullification" doctrine of the Ken- 
tucky resolutions, and he then disclaimed, for Jefferson 
as well as for himself, any purpose to do more than force 
attention to the dangerous character of the Federalist 
laws. 

173. Overthrow of the Federalist Party. 1800. 
The Federalists suffered most from their errors, and 
went down in the presidential election of 1800, never to 
have power in the national government again. Their 
legislation had been wanting in respect for the most 
cherished of rights. Their disposition was not demo- 
cratic ; they felt and expressed distrust of the common 
mass of people, whom Jefferson and the statesmen of his 
school trusted most for the guarding of the welfare of 
the nation as a whole. By the death of Wash- 
incrton, which came suddenly and shocked the washing- 

1 1 r T^ 1 1 ton, 1799. 

country on the 14th 01 December, 1799, the 
Federalist party suffered an irreparable loss. Though 
he tried to be of no party, the ''Father of his Country" 
was plainly drawn in opinion toward Federalist views, 
and his great influence over the party gave it strength. 
It was torn by factious quarrels among its leaders after 
that restrainimr influence had been withdrawn. Further 
weakening came from the cooling of war excitements, 



296 THE MAKING OF A NATION. 

after peace negotiations, invited by France, were re- 
Treaty with opened in the spring of 1800. From those 
France. negotiations came a treaty which cancelled the 
treaty of 1778, with all its obligations of alliance, but 
left the United States to indemnify its own citizens for 
French ^^^ French spoliations of the late war. The 
cfa/ms^°^ claims then arising were shamefully neglected 

1800. £qj. almost a century, no provision for their set- 
tlement being made until 1885. 

174. John Marshall, Chief Justice. 1801-1835. In 
two branches of the government the Federalists lost 
power in the elections of 1800. In the third branch — 
the Judicial — they left a great jurist, John Marshall, of 
Virginia, appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court 
of the United States by President Adams, in January, 

1801. Mr. Marshall held that high office until 1835, 
during which long term his profound decisions on ques- 
tions of constitutional law had a measureless effect. 
They went far toward establishing the Federal Union 
on that bed-rock of sovereign nationality which the Fed- 
eralists sought. Marshall succeeded Hamilton in the 
true Federalist work. 

175. Election of Jefferson and Burr. 1800. For 
reelection, Adams received but 65 electoral votes, against 
73 cast for Jefferson and the same number for Aaron 
Burr. The tie between Jefferson and Burr carried the 
election into the House of Representatives, which chose 
the former for President and the latter for Vice-Presi- 
dent, as the voters of their party had intended ; though 
some of the Federalists attempted to give the higher 
office to Burr. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 297 



TOPICS AND SUGGESTED READING AND RESEARCH. 

I 

151. Inauguration of President "Washington. — Or- 
ganization of Government under the Federal Con- 
stitution. 

Topics and References. 

I. Inauguration of President Washington. 2. Character of the 
First Congress. 3. Leading measures of the First Session. Hunt, 
168-169; Schouler, i. 81-105; McMaster, i. 533-534, 540-544; 
Hart, Formation^ 14 [-143. 

4. The first tariff law. McMaster, i. 544-552; Hunt, 169-174; 
Hildreth, iv. 65-91, 96-99; Schouler, i. 87-92, Johnston, Ajh. 
Politics, 21-22. 

5. Debate on the slave trade. Hildreth, iv. 91-96 ; McMaster, 
i. 552-555 ; Schouler, i. 142-145; Hart, Fo7'ination, 146-147. 

6. The three executive departments first instituted. 7. The 
Constitutional Amendments. Schouler, i. 93-96; Hildreth, iv. 
101-108 ; McMaster, i. 555 ; Lodge, Washiiigioii, ii. 61-72; Hart, 
Formation^ 143-145 ; Johnston, Am. Politics, 20-21. 
Research. — i. The President's Cabinet. Hoist, Co7ist. Laiv^fp- 

95 ; Bryce, i. ch. ix. 2. The executive departments of the Federal 
Government as now organized. Congressional Directory for the 
current year. 3. Reasons for the omission originally of a declara- 
tion of rights in the Constitution. Madison, Letters, i. 423-427; 
Hamilton, The Federalist, No. 84. 4. The Federal judicial sys- 
tem. Bryce, i. ch. xxii.-xxiii, 

152. Hamilton's Report on the Public Debt and on 

Public Credit. 

Topics and References. 

I. The argument of the report (text in MacDonald, ii. 46-58 ; 
Hamilton, iii. 1-45). 2. The debt of the late Confederation. — 
Where owed and in what forms and amounts. 3. Grounds of ob- 
jection to full payment of claims at home. 4. Hamilton's plans 
and their success. Hunt, 179-182 ; Lodge, Hafnilton, 85-96, 117- 
120; Gordy, i. 118-121; McMaster, i. 567-579 ; Schouler, i. 130-136; 
Hildreth, iv. 152-171, 206,214-216; Hoist, United States, i. 83-85. 



298 FOUNDING OF A NATIONAL GOVERNMENT. 

5. 'JMie state debts. — Reasons for and against the assumption 
of them. 6. The bargain by which the assumption bill was carried 
through. 7. The just denunciation of it. Hunt, 182-200 ; Morse, 
Jefferson^ 97-106; Lodge, Ha7niltoii^ 121-129; Hildreth, iv. 171- 
174, 206-216; SchouIer,i. 136-142; Gordy. i. 121-128; Hoist, United 
States, i. 85-89; Johnston, Am. Politics^ 23-24; Jefferson, vi. 172- 
174; Madison, Letters., i. 507-522. 

153. The Slavery Question. — First Abolition 
Memorials. 

Topics and References. 

I. Memorials against slavery and the slave trade. — Report 
adopted by the House of Representatives (text in MacDonald, ii. 
58-60). 2. Death of Franklin. Hoist, 6^;/ //tv/ 6'/<2/^j-, i. 89-94; Hil- 
dreth, iv. 174-205; Schouler, i. 145-150; Hart, T^^r//^^//^;/, 1 51-152. 

154. First Census. — First Patent Law, etc. 

Topics and Referenxes. 

1. Acts mentioned. — Policy of the Patent Act. — Its impor- 
tance. Hildreth, iv. 220-221 ; McMaster, i. 582-583; Schouler, i. 
129-130. 

2. Ratification of the Federal Constitution by North Carolina and 
Rhode Island. Hildreth, iv. 147-150, 209; Schouler, i. 127-128. 

3. Population shown by the census of 1790. Hildreth, iv. 301. 
Research. — How have the patent laws stimulated invention? 

Important results of American invention. Celebration of the 
Beginning of the 2d Centiiry of the American Patefit System, 
i8gi : Addresses. 

155. The National Bank Question. 

Topics and References. 

I. Philadelphia the temporary seat of government. 2. Ham- 
ilton's proposal of excise (text in MacDonald, ii. 61-66; Hamil- 
ton, iii. 95-105). 3. His project of a national bank, and his objects, 
financial and political (text in MacDonald, ii. 67-76; Hamilton, 
iii. 106-T46; Hart, Contemp's, abr'g'd, iii. 276-281). 4. Its oppo- 
nents and their objections. Madison, Letters., i. 528 ; Lodge, Ham- 
ilton, 96-104, 1 31-132 ; McMaster, ii. 25-32 ; Hoist, United States, 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 299 

i. 104-106; Schouler, i. 15S-160; Gordy, i. 129-131 ; Hildreth. iv. 

251-262'; Hart, Formation, 1 50-1 51. 

Research. — How would the national bank strengthen the or- 
ganization of capital and credit in the country? White, Moncv 
and Banking, bk. ii. ch. i. and iv. 

156. The Doctrine of "Implied Powers" in the 

Constitution. 

Topics and References. 

I. The constitutional argument against the national bank pro- 
ject. 2. Hamilton's reply to it. 3. His doctrine of •' implied 
powers '" and the division produced by it. 4. The " elastic 
clause '' of the Constitution. 5. Results from the establishment of 
the bank, 6. Prosperity of the country. Jefferson, v. 284-289 ; 
Hamilton, iii. 249-251. iv. 104-138; Madison, Letters^ i. 528, 546; 
Hunt, 201-204; i\IacDonald, ii. 76-98; Lalor, i. 199-200; Hil- 
dreth, iv. 262-267 ; Lodge, Hamilton, 104-106, 133-135 ; Gordy, 
i. 135-137; Schouler, i. 160-162. 

Research. — Chief Justice Marshall on the rule by which the 
Constitution is to be construed. Marshall, JVriti?igs (case of 
Gibbons ?'. Ogden), 288-291 ; Magruder, 172-179. 

157. Vermont and Kentucky admitted to the Union. 

Topics and References. 

I. Previous history of \>rmont. 2. Separation of Kentucky 
from Mrginia. Hildreth, iv. 267-272 ; Schouler, i. 149-150. 

168. Hamilton and the Policy of " Protection " to 
Home Industries. 

Topics and References. 

I. Hamilton's report on manufactures : its recommendations 
(text in Hamilton, iii. 192-284: MacDonald, abr'g'd, ii. 98-112). 

2. His renewed appeal to ''implied powers " in the Constitution. 

3. The policy of "internal improvements" toward which it led. 

4. Outcome of the report. Elliott, 93-112; Lodge, Hamilton, 
108-114 ; Schouler, i. 186-187 ; Hildreth. iv. 307-309. 

Research. — Summarize the recommendations and argument of 
Hamilton's report. 



300 FOl'XDING OF A NATIONAL GOVERNMENT. 

159. Indian War. — Harmar's and St. Clair's De- 
feats. 

Topics and References. 

I. The two disasters. — General Wayne's ultimate success. 
McMaster, i. 593-603 : ii. 43-47. 69-72; Schouler, i. 151-15S, 191- 
197: Hildreth, iv. 2S1-2S7. 

160. Reelection of President Washington. 

Topics and References. 

I. Unanimity of the reelection of Washington. — The opponent 
of Adams. McMaster, ii. S5-SS : Schouler, i. 212-213; Lodge, 
U'asht'fii^ioH, ii. 230-231. 

161. The Arraying of Political Parties. 

Topics and References. 

I. Washington's non-partisan endeavor. 2. The measures which 
first divided parties, rallying them round Hamilton and Jefferson. 
3. Changes from the former " Federalist " and " Anti-Federalist " 
parties. 4. The new subjects of contention. 5. Character of the 
Hamiltonian partv. — Suspicions of its monarchical inclinations. 
6. Democratic beliefs of Jefferson and his party. 7. Causes of 
the animosity between the two parties. Hoist, i'/iitfd Stdi€s/\. 
S0-S2, 108-112; Gordy, i. 103-117, 132-158; Johnston, 26-2S : 
Hunt, 204-214; Schouler, i. 165-177. 241-242: Hildreth. iv. 291- 
300, 331-357; Hart, Formation, 155-157; Hart, Co n/t' ////>' s, iii. 
296-29S; Lodge, //<7w//Av/, 136-142: Lodge, Ji\7s//i\i^fon,u. 216- 
220; Morse J /t'^'t-rsoN, in -123 ; Lalor, i. 612-613: Bryce, i. 63S- 

643- 

8. Injustice of the two parties to each other. 9. Tendencies 
and dangers in the extreme views of both. 10. Their needed 
checking and counter-checking of each other. 

Research. — i. The continued tendency in party politics to divi- 
sion on similar lines. Brown, Dt/tHte 0/ Political Parties {At- 
lantic^ November, 1900). 2. Estimates of Hamilton and Jefferson 
as statesmen. Fiske, Essays^ i. 99-1 Si ; Trent, 49-S6 ; Brvce, 
i. 641 ; Ames, ii. 256-264. 3. Differences between the two par- 
ties as defined by Jefferson in 1 79S and 1S13. Am. Hist. Rev., iii. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 301 

488-480. and Jefferson, IVn'fin^s (Ford ed.), ix. 373-376. 4. Dif- 
ference between a centralized government and a centralized ad- 
ministration. Tocqueville, i. 107-112. 



162. The French Revolution in American Politics. 

Topics and References. 

I. Early and later feeling in the United States concerning the 
French Revolution. McMaster, ii. 89-97, 308-310 ; Lodge, IVas/i- 
irigfofiyW. 136-144; Morse, Jt'J^l'rsofi, 146-147; Gordy, i. 176-179; 
Hildreth, iv. 41 1-412 ; H-^ivt, Formation, 157; Hoist, United States, 
i. 107. 

163. France and England at 'War. — "Citizen 

Genet." 

Topics and References. 

I. Obligations of the United States under the alliance treaty of 
1778 with France. 2. The difficult preservation of neutrality. 3. 
Attitude of the Anti-Federalists or Republicans, and conduct of 
" Citizen Genet." Hamilton, iv. 357-390, 393-406 ; Jefferson, Writ- 
ings (Ford ed.), vi. 218-231, 371-393, 396-398; McMaster, ii. 97- 
141; Gordy. i. 179-200; Schouler, i. 242-256; Hildreth, iv. 412- 
440, 477-478: Hoist, United States, i. 11 2-1 18; Lodge, Washing- 
ton, ii. 144-1O1 ; Lodge, Haniiiton, 161 -175; Morse, Jefferson, 
147-165; Johnston, Am. Politics, 30-33; Hart, Formation, 158- 
160; Hart, Contempts, iii. 305-312; MacDonald, ii. 112-114. 
Research. — Did the United States, in this case, fairly fulfil its 

treaty obligations to France.'* Madison, Letters, i. 651-654. 

164. Enmity between Jefferson and Hamilton. 

Topics and References. 

I. Resignation of Jefferson from the cabinet. 2. His party, 
newly named. 3. Retirement of Hamilton. Schouler, i. 202-212, 
286-287; Hildreth, iv. 357-373. 453-457, 53^; Morse, Jefferson, 
162-165; Hamilton, iv. 293-305; Jefferson, IfVitings (Ford ed.), 
vi. 101-109. See, also, references under sect. 161. 



302 FOUNDING OF A NATIONAL GOVERNMENT. 

165. Impending War with England. — Peace Mission 
of Chief Justice Jay. 

Topics and References. 

I. Exasperating conduct of England and France in their war 
with one another. 2. Rights of neutrals in dispute. 3. The right 
of search and impressment claimed by England. 4. Other causes 
of bitter feeling in the United States. 5. Washington's last effort 
for peace. McMaster, ii. 165-188; Schouler, i. 260-272 ; Gordy, 
i. ch. xiv. ; Hildreth, iv. 481-489 ; Lodge, Washington, ii. 165-176 ; 
Johnston, Am. Politics, 33-36; Hamilton, iv. 519-532, 536-539, 
549-557; Hart, Contejnp''s, iii. 312-314. 

166. "Whiskey Rebellion" in Pennsylvania. 

Topics and References. 

I. Causes of special hostility to the excise in the mountain 
regions. 2. Vigorous suppression of the rebellion and the effect. 
Hamilton, iv. 575-604; v. 1-12, 16-26, 31-33, 38-54; McMaster, 
ii. 41-43, 189-203; MacDonald, ii. 130-135; Hildreth, i v. 498-516 ; 
Hoist, United States, i. 94-104; Gordy, i. ch. xiii, ; l^odge., Ham- 
ilton, 180-185; Schouler,!. 275-280; Hart, Formatio7i, 163-164; 
MacDonald, ii. 130-135. 

167. The Jay Treaty with England. 

Topics and References. 

1. Main provisions of the treaty (text in MacDonald, ii. 114- 
130). — Its inadequacy. 2. The rage against it in the United States. 
3. Later reaction in its favor. Pellew, 301-317; McMaster, ii. 
212-235, 245-256, 263-284 ; Hunt, ch. xxiii. ; Lodge, Washington, ii. 
176-207; Hoist, United States, ii. 122-128; Hildreth, iv. 539-564, 
584-616; Johnston, A)n. Politics, 37-39 ; Gordy, i. ch. xv. ; Schou- 
ler, i. 289-305, 307-314; Hart, Formation, 162-163; Hart, Con- 
temp's, iii. 315-319; Hamilton, v. 106-137. 
Research. — The speech of Fisher Ames in advocacy of the Jay 

Treaty. Ames, ii. 37-71. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 303 

168. Important Events in the "West. 

Topics and References. 

I. Treaty with Spain. 2. Admission of Tennessee. 3. Eng- 
lish delivery of western forts and opening of the Mississippi. 
Schouler, i. 307, 314-317; McMaster, ii. 284-287; Hildreth, iv. 
569-570. 
Research. — Importance to the western settlements of the free 

navigation of the Mississippi. Roosevelt, The Winnings iii. ch. 

iii. ; F. A. Walker, The Making of the Nation^ 110-112. 

169. Retirement of Washington. — Election of John 

Adams. 

Topics and References. 

I. Washington's Farewell Address (text in Earned, Ready Ref.). 
2. Circumstances of the election of Adams from one party, for 
President, and Jefferson from the other, for Vice-President. Mc- 
Master, ii. 289-307 ; Hildreth, iv. 685-691 ; v. 25-30, 42-45 ; Schou- 
ler, i. 327-335; Lodge, Washingto7t, ii. 243-254, 270-274; Hoist, 
United States, i. 132-137; Morse, Adams, 257-268; Johnston, 
A7n. Politics, 40-43 ; Hart, Formation, 164-165. 

Research. — Summarize the topics of Washington's Farewell 
Address. 

170. Quarrel and Hostilities with France. 

Topics and References. 

1. Mistake of President Adams in keeping Washington's cabi- 
net. WzxX., For7nation, 165; Schouler, i. 341-344. 

2. Ill-feeling jn France toward the United States. — Affront 
given. — Hostile acts. 3. Treatment of American envoys extraor- 
dinary. — The " X. Y. Z. Correspondence." 4. War feeling in 
the United States, but checked in France. — Naval engagements. 
Morse, Adams, 273-287, 291-305; Moxso., Jefferson, 179-193; 
Schouler, i. 344-358, 373-392, 428-435, 439-444; McMaster, ii. 
311-323, 344, 367; Hoist, United States, i. 128-132, 138-142; 
Hildreth, iv. 645-684, 702-704, v. 45-63, 94-95, 125-159, 191-213, 
220-223, 250-267, 304; Johnston, Am. Politics, 44-46; Gordy> 
i. 265-312; Yi2.x\., Formation, 166-168; Hart, Co7itemp''s, iii. 322- 
326. 



304 FOUNDING OF A NATIONAL GOVERNMENT. 

171. The Alien and Sedition Acts. 

Topics anh Refkrkncks. 

I. Violence of party newspapers and pamphleteers. 2. High- 
handed mtiasures of the Federalists (texts in MacDonald, ii. 137- 
148; Larned, Ready Rcf.). 3. Cherished rights and liberties 
assailed. Gordy, i. ch. xix. ; McMaster, ii. 389-403. 417-419, 424- 
427; Schouler, i. 392-403, 420-421; Hildreth, v. 213-217, 225- 
232; Lalor, i. 56-58; Y{-a.x\, Formation, 168-170; Johnston, Am. 
Politics, ^^-^t^] Hoist, United States, i. 142-143. 

172. The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions. 

Topics and References. 

I, Dangerous doctrine of " nullification " advanced by the Re- 
publicans. 2. Its expression in Kentucky, and more moderately 
in Virginia (texts in MacDonald, ii. 149-157; Larned, Ready Re/.). 
Hoist, United States, i. 143-167; Lalor, ii. 672-677; Gordy, i. ch. 
XX.; Hunt, ch. xxvi.-xxvii. ; Hildreth, v. 232-235, 272-277, 296- 
301 ; Johnston, Am. Politics, 48-50; Hart, P\jrjnation, 1 70-1 71 ; 
Hart, Contempts, iii. 329-331 ; Morse, Jefferson, 193-195; Schou- 
ler, i. 422-425 ; Benton, View, i. ch. Ixxxvii., Ixxxix. 

173. Overthrow of the Federalist Party. 

Topics and References. 

I. Causes of defeat to the Federalist party in 1800. 2. Effect 
of the death of Washington. 3. New treaty with France. 
4. " French Spoliation Claims." Morse, Adams, -^0^-7^21 \ Schou- 
ler, i. 500-501 ; Hoist, United States, i. 179-182; Gordy, i. ch. 
xxi.; Hildreth, v. 337-340, 321-331, 353-357, 3^6-389, 398-399, 
414-418; Hart, Fonnatio)i, 171-175; Hart, Contempts,' \\\. 333- 
343; McMaster, ii, 45^-454, 428-430, 527-529- 
Research. — The *' French Spoliation Claims." Wharton, Digest, 

ii. 714-728; Webster, iv. 152-178; Benton, Vie^u, i. 487-521, 

174. John Marshall, Chief Justice. 

Topics and Rkfkrkncks, 

I. Appointment of John Marshall, Chief Justice of the Supreme 
Court, and the influence of his constitutional decisions. Ma- 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 305 

gruder, ch. x. ; Cooley, et «:/., ch. ii. ; Morse, Ada?ns, 321-322; 
Schouler, \. 480. 

Research, — The constitutional decisions of Chief Justice Mar- 
shall. Magruder, 182-201. 

175. Election of Jefferson and Burr. 

Topics and References. 

I. Circumstances of the election. Moxsq^ Jejferson, 195-208; 
McMaster, ii. 497-527; Hoist, United States, i. 168-177; Schouler, 
i. 480-488 ; Hildreth, v. 389-392, 402-408 : Johnston, Am. Politics^ 
52-54. 



EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 
1800-1840. 



CHAPTER IX. 



THE YOUNG NATION HARASSED BY OLDER POWERS. 

1S01-1809. 

176. The United States at the Beginning of the 
Nineteenth Century. The census of 1800 showed the 
population of the United States to be 35 per cent, greater 
than in 1790, numbering 5,306,000, almost equally divided 
by the southern boundary line of Pennsylvania — the 
** Mason and Dixon's Line," so called, which came to be 
the line of division between free and slave States. But 
the white people of the north numbered 2,600,000, 
Free and against 1,700,000 in the south. The south had 
iation'°^^ added 200,000 to its slaves in ten years, while 
1800. ^\^Q north held 4000 fewer blacks in slavery than 

when the decade began. Of 36,000 slaves in northern 
States, 20,000 were in New York. 

Pennsylvania was the most populous, and, on the whole, 
the most prosperous State. Philadelphia was the lar- 
gest and finest city ; but New York was making a rapid 
advance. In \Yishington, the new seat of federal gov- 
ernment, just buildings enough had been erected to give 
Congress an unfinished place of meeting, and to shelter 
the officials and servants of the government in a rather 
comfortless way. 



THE YOUNG NATION HARASSED. 307 

Something less than half a million people were now- 
making homes in the wilderness west of the Alleghany 
Mountains, mostly spread along the banks of the Ohio 
and its southern branches, the greater number in Ken- 
tucky and Tennessee. The vast Northwestern Territory 
had received no more than 50,000 inhabitants 

. Northwest- 

at this time, and none of their settlements ernTerri- 
touched the lakes, except at the old French 
post of Detroit. It had been divided (May, 1800) be- 
tween two territorial governments, one extending over 
what became, two years later, the State of Ohio, the 
other organized for the Territory of Indiana, which 
embraced what remained. Census-takers in the latter 
found less than 5000 white people to count. In the 
southwest a third Territory, named Mississippi, had been 
formed in 1798, in the region west of Georgia, claimed 
by that State. 

Between the communities growing up in the valley of 
the Ohio and the older ones east of the mountains the 
intercourse, in trade or otherwise, was very slight ; the 
interests common to them were few ; there was little to 
bind them together, and much, apparently, to interests of 
force them apart. Nature, by her channelling *^® ^®^^- 
of their waterways (see Map I.), drew the valley people 
away from the east and the Atlantic, to seek their outlets 
of trade, their means of development, the satisfying of 
their ambitions, in the southwest and on the Gulf, where 
the Spaniards ruled. The roads, canals, and railways that 
would in time check this natural detachment of the val- 
ley from the coast were yet to come. 

Those natural forces by the help of which man is now 
overcoming natural obstacles were scarcely known when 
the nineteenth century began. Steam was a servant 
just mastered and little tried. Watts had been building 



308 EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

steam engines of his final pattern for a dozen years ; 
but, even in 1803, only five engines were known 

steam en- , , . . , i i t t • i r- i 

gines and to be working in the whole United States.-^ 
William Henry, John Fitch, James Riimsey, 
Oliver Evans, and other inventive mechanics in America 
and Europe had been experimenting for a quarter of a 
century or more with boats propelled by steam ; but six 
years were yet to pass before Fulton would realize their 
dream, by establishing a steamboat on the Hudson River 
(1807), making regular trips between Albany and New 
York. 

A much simpler invention, but one of momentous con- 
sequence to the United States, had been perfected in 
Whitney's 1/93' ^hen Eli Whitney constructed his ma- 
cotton gin. chine, called a "gin," for separating the fibre 
of cotton from the seed. Cotton culture had been dis- 
couraged by the expensiveness of that necessary separa- 
tion when done by hand. At the same time an almost 
unlimited demand for the fibre had been created in Eng- 
land, by inventions of machinery for spinning and weav- 
ing, by the organizing of the factory system, and by the 
use of steam power. Instantly, Whitney's " cotton gin " 
made it possible for southern planters in the United 
States to respond to the English demand. In 1790 there 
had been no exportation of cotton ; in 1800 the 
tureand ' value of the export was $5,700,000. From that 
time the production rose as fast as slave labor 
could spread it over the extreme southern States, and 
the value of slave labor was correspondingly raised. 
This not only rooted the institution of slavery with new 

^ Mr. Henry Adams cites this statement from a report made in 
1803 by Benjamin H. Latrobe, an eminent engineer. Hist, of the 
United States during the First Ad/ninistration of Thomas Jcffcr- 
5071., i. 70. 



THE YOUNG NATION HARASSED. 309 

fixity in those "Cotton States," as they came to be called, 
but gave it a new hold upon their neighbors, which pro- 
fited by the rise in the price of slaves. As agreed in the 
framing of the Constitution, the importation of slaves 
from outside of the Union was to cease in 1808. There- 
after the plantations would depend for their labor on the 
home supply. Virginia, Maryland, and Kentucky would 
then become sources of such supply, and a fresh interest 
in the perpetuation of slavery was given thereby to those 
States. The sentiment favorable to emancipation, which 
had been growing in them, was overcome, and the de- 
plorable division of the States on the slavery question 
into two disputing and angry sections, marked off from 
each other by ''Mason and Dixon's Line" and by the 
Ohio River, was soon a menacing fact. 

The sectional division had another cause ; for industrial 
differences, between the agricultural south and industrial 
the manufacturing, mercantile, maritime north, se?uonai 
had been leading toward political differences ^^^^^lon. 
since early colonial times. The northern States, espe- 
cially those of New England, were drawn by their leading 
interests toward the doctrines of government which 
Hamilton and the Federalists worked out ; while the very 
different interests of the southern States bent opinion in 
politics the contrary way. 

177. The Political Change brought about by Jeffer- 
son's Election. 1800-1801. In Mr. Jefferson's view, 
the political change brought about by the defeat of the 
Federalist party and his own election, in 1800, "was as 
real a revolution in the principles of our government as 
that of 1776 was in its form." In taking direction of the 
government he wished to make it, as he set forth in his 
inaugural address, " a wise and frugal government, which 
shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall 



310 EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits 
of industr}* and improvement, and shall not take from 
the mouth of labor the bread it has earned." "This," he 
jeHersons ^^^' " ^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^ good government." In a 
Srnauonai letter written the summer before his election he 
govenment j^.^^ defined his theory, as concerned the Con- 
stitution, thus : " That the States are independent as to 
everything within themselves, and united as to everything 
respecting foreign nations. Let the general government 
be reduced to foreign concerns only, and let our affairs 
be disentangled from those of all other nations, except as 
to commerce, which the merchants will manage the better 
the more they are left free to manage for themselves, 
and our general government may be reduced to a very 
simple organization, and a very unexpensive one." To 
conform the general government to this theory would 
assuredly have been a revolutionary change ; but it was 
not brought about, as we shall learn, because of circum- 
stances and dispositions in men that were too strong to 
be overcome. 

In the management of those foreign concerns to which 
he would restrict the general government, Jefferson ex- 
pected to dispense with war, except in a com- 
peaceabie mcrcial fomi. He believed that we could 

coercion. . • 

compel other countries to rectify wrongs done 
to us bv withholdins; trade from them till thev did so. 
"Our commerce," he said, "is so valuable to them that 
they will be glad to purchase it, when the only price we 
ask is to do us justice. I believe we have in our hands the 
means of peaceable coercion." This theory of the prac- 
ticability of "peaceable coercion" was brought to trial 
presently by President Jefferson, and disappointed his 
hopes. 

178. The Tripolitan War. 1801-1805. Disbeliev- 



THE VOrXG NATION HARASSED. 



311 



ing in the necessitv for war, the President took measures 
to cut down military and naval expenditure, and his cabi- 
net officers, among- whom were ]\Iadison in the State 
Department and Albert Gallatin in the Treasury, gave 
him hearty assistance to that end. But he and they were 
soon taught that they could not rid themselves of war 
and naval expenditure so readily as they had planned. 
The country was struck by an enemy who had no trade 
to be embari;"oed, and who could feel nothing but hard 




THE BARBARV STATES. 



blows. This was the Pacha of Tripoli, one of the so- 
called Barbarv States of north Africa, all of which states 
had been practising'- piracv and levvins: black- 
mail on the rest of the world for four hundred Barbary 

pirates. 

years. Europe had been willing to pay the 
pirates for letting its commerce alone, rather than unite 
in an undertaking- to break up their nests. So far. the 
United States had followed the European example ; but 
the demands of Tripoli became insolent beyond endur- 
ance in the spring of 1801, and Commodore Dale was 
sent out to the ^lediterranean with a squadron of three 
frigates and a schooner, to tight the corsairs and block- 
ade their ports. He did both with good effect : but the 
war he opened went on for four years, keeping the small 
American navy in active and expensive use. 



312 EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

179. The Louisiana Purchase. 1801-1803. In 
the summer of i8oi it was discovered that Napoleon, 
ruling France with the title of First Consul, had obtained 
from Spain, in the previous October, a secret treaty ced- 
ing back to France that great territory west of the Mis- 
sissippi called Louisiana (including also New 
cession of Orleans on the eastern side of the river), which 

Louisiana ^ . , . , . , 

to France, the Spanish crown acquired in the peace ar- 

1800. 

rangements of 1763 (see sect. 86). Napoleon 
was then projecting a restoration of the colonial em- 
pire of France, and his scheme was most alarming to the 
United States. If Spanish control of the mouth of the 
jMississippi and Spanish occupation of the western bank 
of the river had seemed intolerable to the American in- 
habitants of the vallev dependent on it, how much more 
so must the transfer of that control from decaying Spain 
to an aggressive power like France appear .'' 

Jefferson realized the seriousness of the situation, and 
when the time came to make plain declarations, he did 
not hesitate to say that the United States would never 

submit to the presence of French authoritv in 

JeHerson's ^^ r^ ■, -t-i 1 1 t- '1 

plain iSew Orleans. " 1 he dav that r ranee takes 

words ' 

possession of New Orleans," he wrote in April, 
1802, "seals the union of two nations who in conjunc- 
tion can maintain exclusive possession of the ocean. 
From that moment we must marry ourselves to the Brit- 
ish fleet and nation." This he wrote to Livingston, our 
minister to France, and Napoleon was to be told what he 
had said. For Jefferson to meditate an alliance with 
England against France was no trifling thing. 

It happened at the moment that France and England 
were at peace, and the warning had no effect ; but peace 
lasted for only a year. Within that year Napoleon failed 
disastrously in an undertaking to subjugate and reenslave 



THE YOUNCx NATION HARASSED. 313 

the revplted negroes in Hayti, and his colonial schemes 
wore no promising look. Now that he had determined 
to reopen war with England, he threw those schemes 
suddenly aside. President Jefferson had been pressing 
proposals for the purchase of New Orleans, and of the 
Floridas, which were supposed to have been included in 
the cession from Spain to France, and ]\Ir. Monroe had 
been sent to assist Mr. Livingston in negotia- Thetar- 
tions on that line. When IMonroe reached Paris. Napoieoi? 
in April, 1803, he found the First Consul al- •'■^°^- 
ready treating with Livingston for the sale of all Louisi- 
ana, including New Orleans. As for the Floridas, they 
were still held by Spain. The bargain was closed quickly, 
at a price about equivalent to 515,000,000, and a treaty 
signed on the 2d of May (but dated April 30), which con- 
veyed to the United States all that France had ceded to 
Spain in 1763 and that Spain had ceded back to France 
in I So I (see j\Lap XV.). 

By nothing else ever done in the name of the United 
States, from the presidency of Washington to the elec- 
tion of Abraham Lincoln, was the Federal Union so im- 
pressed with the stamp of sovereign nationality as it was 
by this act, which expanded the bounds of its government 
from the Mississippi to the Rocky iNIountains ; 

. Party 

and vet it was the act of a party which ques- inconsis- 

tcnciss 

tioned nationality in the Union and sovereignty 
in its government, and it was opposed bv a party which 
had never lost an opportunity before to magnify both. 
Jefferson did not shut his eyes to the inconsistency of the 
transaction with his theories of the Federal Constitution, 
nor hesitate on that account to do what every practical 
consideration of public interests required. He confessed 
frankly that he could not find authoritv in the Constitu- 
tion for a purchase of territory, and his wish was to have it 



314 EXPANSION* IX THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

sanctioned by a constitutional amendment ; but his polit- 
ical friends dissuaded him from raising the 
tutionai ' question, lest the fickle and faithless master 
of France should change his mind before the 
transfer of territor}' had been made. Generally, on their 
part, they found authority for what they wished to do 
as readily as the Federalists had done. They argued as 
eagerly for "implied powers" in the Constitution and 
against " strict constructions " as they had argued to the 
contrary a dozen years before. All except the Presi- 
dent ; he was unconvinced ; but he yielded to his party. 

With like contradiction of their own doctrines, the 
Federalists in general opposed the ratification of the treaty 
and the legislation needed to carry it out. Hamilton ap- 
Attitade oi pfoved the acquisition ; but most of the Feder- 
Federaiists. ^{[^^^ Qf Xew England — the remaining strong- 
hold of the party — were alarmed by the prospective loss 
of weight and influence for their own small section in an 
expanded Union, and fought the treaty with all their 
power. They maintained that new territor}' could not be 
incorporated in the Union, not even by an ordinary con- 
stitutional amendment, if a single State withheld assent. 
Some of them emphasized their opposition with threats 
of secession, and attempted afterward to make the threat 
good. 

The treaty was ratified and the needed legislation for 
organizing government in the new domain passed. The 
latter created a "Territory of Orleans," embracing what 
is now the State of Louisiana, and a " District of Loui- 
siana." covering the whole remainder of the pur- 

tion oi gov- chase. The District was first attached in gov- 
ernment. , _, . - -. ,. 

ernment to the Territory of Indiana, then organ- 
ized as the Territory of Louisiana, and finally had its 
name changed to the Territory' of Missouri, in 1S12. The 



THE YOUNG NATION HARASSED. 315 

boundaries of the Louisiana Purchase were ill-defined, 
and the American government, for many years, pressed 
claims to West Florida, as forming a rightful part of it. 
Lately the French archives have shown that that undefined 
claim was not good, but that, according to the ^"^'laries. 
understanding between France and Spain, which they 
concealed, the southwestern boundary of the Purchase 
should have gone beyond the watershed of the Missis- 
sippi and taken in the Texas region, to the Rio Grande. 

180. Secession plotting. — Aaron Burr's Intrigues. 
— Burr and Hamilton Duel. 1803-1804. The extreme 
Federalists of New England, who had threatened seces- 
sion, were not slow in starting a plot to that end. Ap- 
parently there were few who took part in the plot ; but 
it had one most deplorable result. The project of the 
conspirators aimed at a separate union of northern States, 
of which it was necessary that New York should be one. 
To secure New York, they conspired with Vice- separate 
'President Aaron Burr, an adroit and unscrupu- JJr°hern 
lous politician, who had won his way to impor- states, 
tance by disreputable schemes. In the presidential elec- 
tion of 1800 Burr had been guilty of base intrigues to 
cheat Jefferson out of the presidency, and the leading 
Republicans were now treating liim in consequence as 
he deserved. To revenge himself, he entered into a secret 
arrangement with the New England secessionists to help 
them carry New York into a league of northern States. 
He was to be brought forward for governor of New York 
by the Republicans of his own faction, and the conspira- 
tors were to give him what they could of the Federalist 
vote. All went well as planned, except the election ; 
Burr failed to receive the needed votes. Hamilton had 
opposed him strenuously, and was reported to have ex- 
pressed opinions which gave Burr a pretext for demand- 



3l6 EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

ing the barbarous satisfaction of the duel. As duelHng 
was then sanctioned by much influential opin- 

Death of . ,_ m r i n i 1 • 

Hamilton, lon, Hamilton felt called upon to meet him, 
though determined to fire his own pistol in the 
air. The meeting took place at Weehawken, July ii, 
1804, ^^d Hamilton received a wound from which he died 
the next day. One of the greatest of men in American 
history had been slain by one of the meanest and worst. 

181. Presidential Election. 1804. The discomfi- 
ture of Burr and its dreadful sequel stopped the plotting 
of the secessionists for some years, and the Federalist 
party was weakened further by what came to light. In 
the presidential election of 1804 Jefferson was reelected 
by 162 electoral votes against 14, and George Clinton, of 
New York, for Vice-President, received the same vote. 
The mode of election had been changed by a constitu- 
tional amendment which came into force in September 
of that year, and the votes of the electors for President 
and Vice-President were then, for the first time, distinc- 
tively cast. 

182. Burr's Conspiracy in the Southwest. 1805- 
1807. Though indicted in New Jersey for murder and 
shunned almost universally. Burr served out his vice- 
presidential term, which ended March 4, 1805. ^^^ those 
last months of his official stay in Washington it has been 
found that he opened treasonable conferences with the 
British minister there, and with certain delegates from 
New Orleans, who had been sent to complain of the 
form of government under which they were placed. To 
both, it seems, he proposed a scheme for separating 
the western States and Territories from the American 
Union, and making a conquest of Mexico, to form an 
empire, of which he intended, no doubt, to be the head. 
In a cautious way his project was discussed that winter 



THE YOUNG NATION HARASSED. 317 

with otherSj and there appears to be little doubt that he 
won some important adherents, among them Qenerai 
General James Wilkinson, general-in-chief of Wilkinson, 
the army and lately made governor of Louisiana. Wil- 
kinson was a life-long intriguer, — a man of Burr's own 
kind. He had been of the Gates coterie in the Re- 
volution, and was prominent in the Conway Cabal (see 
sect. 122). 

In a long journey made during the summer and fall of 
1805, through Kentucky and Tennessee and down the 
Mississippi to New Orleans, Burr appears to have found 
many who were ready to promise help to his scheme. 
The inhabitants of New Orleans and its district, mostly 
French, were dissatisfied with their arbitrary transfer to 
the United States, and more so because re- 

i- , . ,. . . 1 . 1 ir Discontent 

fused immediate citizenship and selt-govern- in New 
ment, which they claimed to be their right. In 
Kentucky and Tennessee there was much jealousy of 
eastern influence in the government, and the spirit of 
lawless adventure was easily roused. Altogether, there 
was enough to encourage an adventurer as desperate as 
Burr. In the summer of 1806 he went west again, and 
soon afterward there was a mustering of men and boats, 
provisions and munitions, at points on the Ohio and Cum- 
berland rivers, supposedly in preparation for a filibuster- 
ing attack on the Spanish colonies of Florida or Mexico, 
or both. Something at this juncture alarmed Wilkinson, 
and he became suddenly active against Burr, sending 
information to Washington and taking measures at New 
Orleans to frustrate his plans. Thereupon (November 
27, 1806) the President issued a proclamation g^rr's 
commanding the arrest of all concerned, and "faTisoe- 
Burr fled into the wilds of the Mississippi ■'•^°'^- 
Territory, attempting to reach the Gulf coast. He was 



3lS EXFAXSIOX IX THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

captured in February, and brought to trial for treason, 
at Richmond, in August, 1807. On technical grounds 
he escaped punishment by law, but he suffered as Cain 
suffered during the remainder of a long life. Some of 

Burr's confederates were ruined bv the con- 
BiMMT sequences of their folly ; the one most pitied 

was Hamian Blennerhasset, an Irish gentleman 
of wealth and culture, who had a beautiful home on an 
island in the Ohio River, near Marietta, which he allowed 
to become the rendezvous and centre of Burr's plot. 

183. End of the Tripolitan War. 1805. The war 
with Tripoli (often referred to as "the Piarbary \\'ar," 
and sometimes as " the Algerine war ") was ended in 
the summer of 1805, by a treaty under which the United 
States paid a moderate ransom for American captives in 
the Pacha's hands. It was not a triumphant conclusion ; 
but a creditable example of resistance to the insolent 
pirates had been set. For four years the war had been 
giving a training to officers and seamen in the small 
American navv which proved ^•aluable at a little later 
time, and it furnished an effective \\*arning to the neigh- 
borini:: Harbarv despots in Morocco, Tunis, and Algiers. 

184. Renewed Offensiveness of British Conducts 
1803-1805. Renewal of \N-ar between Great Britain and 
Fi-ance had renewed the overbearing conduct of the 
British government, in its treatment of neutrals and 
neutral trade and in its impressment of seamen from Amer- 
ican ships. Formerly its admiralty courts had concealed 
that goods actually imported from a French or Spanish 
colony into the United States, with an actual landing and 
payment of American duties, must be treated as neutral 
goods and exempted from capture if reshippotl to France. 
Now, early in 1805, i^ reversed that rule, and beg-an cajv 
tures which exceeded a hundred in number before the 
year closed. 



THE YOUNG NATION HARASSED. 319 

185. Prosperity of the Country. — Expansion of Na- 
tional Sentiment. 1803-1806. Notwithstanding the 
enormous losses thus inflicted, the ocean trade, almost 
wholly in American hands, was richly profitable ; the 
shipping interests of New England and New York were 
having a prodigious development ; foreign capital was 
flowing into the country, to share the advantages offered 
by its position, its productive resources, and its neutral 
tiag ; and general prosperity prevailed. The recent ex- 
pansion of national territory was awakening a livelier 
sentiment of nationality than had existed before. The 
founding of claims for a further expansion, to the Pacific, 
was already under way ; for the Rocky Mountains were 
being crossed, in 1805, by an expedition Avhich Exploration 
President Jefferson had sent, two years before, ^icTark 
to explore the Missouri to its source. The ex- 1804-1805. 
plorers, Captains Lewis and Clark, pushed on and planted 
their flag in that Oregon region which no other nation 
could claim on valid grounds. 

The revenue of government in this flush time of trade 
rose far above its frugal expenditure, and promised an 
extinguishment of public debt much sooner than had 
been planned. In his annual message of 1806 the Presi- 
dent set forth the happy condition of the treasury, 
managed with rare ability by Secretary Gallatin, and 
recommended measures of Congress to apply the expected 
surplus "to the great purposes of the public education, 
roads, rivers, canals, and such other objects of public im- 
provement as it may be thought proper to add to the 
constitutional enumeration of federal powers." 
He ended his recommendation by saying : "I enlarged 

views of 

suppose an amendment of the Constitution, bv govern- 

f ,, ,- . 1 , ' ment, 1806. 

consent 01 the States, necessary, because the 

objects recommended are not among those enumerated 



320 EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

in the Constitution, and to which it permits the public 
moneys to be applied." This was a conception very differ- 
ent from that expressed five years before, when he wrote : 
" Let the sreneral crovernment be reduced to foreiirn 
concerns only." That he should have been brought to 
contemplate so great an enlargement of the functions of 
the general government, even by constitutional amend- 
ment, gives us interesting evidence of the rapid nation- 
alizing of political ideas that was going on in the American 
mind. 

186. Abolition of the African Slave Trade. 1807. 
In the same message to Congress President Jefferson 
called attention to the approach of the time (iSo8) when 
the Constitution required the importation of slaves from 
foreign sources to be stopped, and recommended legisla- 
tion to that end. It was accordingly made unlawful to 
bring anv slave into the country from abroad after the 
last day of the year 1807, and heavy penalties were laid 
upon violations of the act. 

187. Destruction of Neutral Trade. - British Orders 
in Council and Napoleonic Decrees. 1806-1807. The 
pleasant prospect, contemplated in 1806, of surplus reve- 
nues to become applicable to purposes of education and 
improved means of communication in the country, was 
not enjoyed long. It depended on the keeping of some 

part of the profitable advantajres of neutralitv. 

Napoleon's ^ ^ i i ' i 

power: in the deadly struiicrle between Kni;land and 

England s -? c^{r> ^ 

strngeie the rulcr of France ; and that struggle was 

with him. ^^ 

1805-1807. reaching a stage where no real neutrality would 
be suffered to exist. Napoleon (now a self-crowned em- 
peror) had become absolutelv the master of France and 
of half Furope besides, and he used them as he pleasetl 
for his merciless jnirposes of war. The end of 1806 found 
Spain, Italy, Austria, all Germany, and the Netherlands 



THE YOUNG NATION TTARASSKD. 32 1 

obeying his commands, and Russia being humbled to 
alliance with him by dreadful defeats. luigland alone of 
the great powers had been able to withstand the terrible 
warrior, and she only because his armies could not reach 
her island while her navies kept possession of the sea. 
His last hope of crossing the narrow Strait of Dover 
perished in 1805, when the combined fleets of France and 
Spain were destroyed by Lord Nelson at Trafalgar. Then 
the conflict became a strange one, between land power 
and sea power, each beyond the other's reach. How could 
they pursue their war ? Only by striking at the com- 
merce on which both depended for all that gave commercial 
them their power. So thev began, with naval "^^^^®- 
blockading on one side and military coast-guarding on the 
other, to do, if possible, by ruin and starvation, what they 
could not do with bullets and shells. A double motive 
impelled England to this system of commercial warfare. 
While weakening Napoleon, it would likewise check the 
startling growth of the American carrying trade, in rivalry 
with her own. She opened her undertaking in May, 1806, 
by an *' order in council " which declared that all the coasts, 
ports, and rivers of western Europe, from Brest to the 
Elbe, should be considered as in a state of blockade, with 
the consequence that any vessel bound for any part of 
that coast and intercepted at sea by British cruisers 
would be subject to capture as prize of war. p^pg^ 
This was what came to be known as a " paper blockading, 
blockade," there being little or no attempt to block the 
entrance to ports and rivers by naval forces actually on 
the watch. The sole object was to multiply the prizes 
which British cruisers might catch at sea. Napoleon, 
then lording it at the Prussian capital, retaliated in No- 
vember by an edict, styled the Berlin Decree, which not 
only declared the British islands to be similarly blockaded, 



322 EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

— on paper, — but forbade all commerce in British mer- 
British chandise, and commanded the seizure of such 
JJ^"^ merchandise wherever found within the wide 

?ewee?,^^° stretch of his authority, from the Mediterranean 
1805-1807. ^Q ^YiQ Baltic Sea. His power was so great that 
he planned a "continental system" of commercial war, 
for the ruin of British manufactures and trade. The 
British government retorted in January and November, 
1807, by new orders, aimed at the suppression of all 
maritime commerce of France and her allies, except as it 
might be licensed and taxed at British ports. Napoleon 
met this by a decree from Milan, in December, command- 
ing the seizure of any vessel that had submitted to the 
orders of his foe. 

So far, then, as the warring powers could enforce their 
orders and decrees, neutral commerce — which had come 
to be mainly American commerce — was destroyed ; but 
the evasion was extensive, and American shipping was 
not driven from the sea. 

188. British Search and Impressment. 1807. The 
country was angered less by the English orders and 
French decrees than it was by the persistent impress- 
ment of seamen from American ships. With increasing 
insolence, British officers were pursuing that high-handed 
practice, even in American waters, at the very entrances 
of the most important ports. The climax of insult in 
.pjjQ the matter was reached in June of that year, 

and^the^ when the Chesapeake, an American frigate, just 
peake,' outfitted at Norfolk and wholly unready for 
1807. battle, was overhauled as she sailed out of 

Chesapeake Bay by a British frigate, the Leopard, whose 
captain demanded permission to search for three desert- 
ers, claimed to have been received into the Chesapeake's 
crew. On refusal, three broadsides were poured into 



THE YOUNG NATION HARASSED. 323 

her, killing three and wounding eighteen men. Having 
nothing in readiness, she returned only a single shot, 
which one of her officers fired with a coal from the cook's 
galley ; and her flag was struck. The three men claimed 
as deserters were taken, and proved to be Americans, 
wrongfully impressed before, and now styled deserters 
because they had escaped from their captivity. A fourth 
man was found hidden on board, who turned out to be a 
British deserter in fact. 

189. An Experiment in " Peaceable Coercion." — 
The Embargo Act. 1807-1809. Since Lexington there 
had been no excitement in the country so great as this 
unexampled outrage produced. A few Federalists still 
justified British conduct in everything; but they were 
very few. Almost universally there arose a cry for war; 
yet war did not follow. It did not follow for two reasons : 
(i) the indifference of the southern States to maritime 
and commercial interests, which centred almost 

Influence 
wholly in the north ; and (2) the extraordinary of President 
^ J \ / 7 Jefferson. 

influence of President Jefferson, whose unbelief 
in war as a remedy for national wrongs overcame all con- 
trary feelings in the public mind. 

President Jefferson believed, as we have seen, in the 
practicability of extorting justice from other nations by 
simply refusing to have dealings with them when their 
conduct was wrong. He was able to persuade his country 
to act on that belief. He persuaded Congress to reduce 
the American navy to a fleet of little gunboats, for harbor 
defence only, and to stop the construction of larger war- 
vessels, for ocean service, even while British cruisers 
were driving the merchant shipping of the 
country from the sea. In April, 1 806, he obtained portation 

. r ^ ^ '^ ' ^ • ^Ct, 1806. 

authority from Congress to prohibit the im- 
portation of British goods, as a measure of peaceable coer- 



324 EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

cion ; but the operation of the act was deferred for twenty 
months, while abortive attempts to negotiate with the 
English government were made once more. On the J4th 
of December, 1807, the non-importation act was carried 
into effect, and nine days later it was followed by a more 
heroic measure. This latter was an embargo act, which 
Embargo forbade the exportation of anything from the 
Act, 1807. United States to any foreign port, ordering 
every foreign ship in American waters to depart and every 
American ship to be held fast. In a word, it ended what 
British orders and Napoleonic decrees had left of Ameri- 
can trade ; and that suppression of the external com- 
merce of the country was persevered in till the end of 
Jefferson's term, while New England went frantic over 
the idleness of its ships, and the cotton and tobacco of 
the south had no sale. 

The rage of the shipping interest against the embargo 
was fierce. The old Federalist belief that Jefferson and 
his party were under French influence in whatever they 
did came to life and did mischief again. Apparently 
there were whispers of secession in some quarters once 
more, and the governor of Canada sent an agent, named 
John Henry, into New England, on a mission of 
Henry intrigue. Three years afterward Henry sold 
papers. ^^^ information he had gathered to the govern- 
ment of the United States ; but his papers named nobody 
and disclosed no really treasonable act. 

Everywhere, as the months of stagnation in the country 

dragged on, disgust and disaffection grew bitter ; for no 

siojns of any effect on the conduct of France or 

Failure 

of the England appeared. Napoleon welcomed the 

em argo. QXYih3.rgo as a blow to England, and he helped 
to enforce it by orders of his own ; while his minister at 
Washington confessedly used influence to have it pro- 



THE YOUNG NATION HARASSED. 325 

longed. The British West Indies were half starved by 
it, and England suffered from the pinching of her sup- 
plies of cotton and food ; but high prices in the food 
market were agreeable to the landlords who ruled Eng- 
land, and they were not in haste to remove the cause. 

The experiment of " peaceable coercion " had failed. 
The President himself was compelled at the end to admit 
that "it costs more than war" ;^ though he still peaceawo 
believed that it would have wrung justice from more costly 
England in a bloodless way if an absolute em- *^^ '^"• 
bargo could have been enforced. But the influence of 
his opinions was no longer what it had been. His party 
suffered in popularity with him, and most likely it would 
have been beaten in the presidential election of 
1808, if the opponents of the embargo policy Madison, 
could have acted together. As it was, their 
division gave the presidency to Mr. Madison, the candi- 
date of his choice ; but the Federalists swept New Eng- 
land, and cast 47 electoral votes, against 14 in 1804. 

190. Substitution of Non-intercourse for the Em- 
bargo. 1809. Nevertheless, the administration was 
strong enough in Congress to carry, in January, 1809, ^^ 
act enlarging its powers for the enforcement of the em- 
bargo ; and this proved to be more than the country 
would endure. The town meetings of New England were 
soon speaking as they spoke in 1774, so threateningly, 
and with so much concurrence of feeling in the middle 
States, that Congress was seized with a panic which the 
supporters of the embargo could not resist. The latter 
were beaten in an attempt to prolong the measure till 
June, and a bill was passed which ended it on the day 
of Jefferson's retirement, March 4, 1809. The alternative 

1 Writings, ed. by Washington, v. 433 (not contained in Ford's 
edition). 



Z26 EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

of \\*ar \N-as not accepted, however, nor \\-as the idea of 
peaceable coercion cast aside. For the embargoing of all 
foreign trade there was substituted non-intercoiu-se with 
England and France. This was done by an act which 
excluded the ships of those countries from American 
waters, and forbade the importation of goods from either, 
until one or both gave evidence of respect for neutral 
rights. 

191. Political Effects. The political effects of the 
embargo policy had been singular enough. Substan- 
tially, the parties exchansred constitutional doc- 

The parties . . 

•xekax«B tniies. each taking up what, formerly, it had 
denounced : for the extreme powers exercised 
in the Embargo Act, and in arbitrary measures to enforce 
it, were drawn from the Constitution by Federalist ic 
constructions, and constitutional arguments against them 
were borrowed by Federalists from the old log:ic which 
the Republicans had thrown aside. 

192. Territorial Reorganization. 1805-1809. In 
February, 1809. ^^"^ ^^^^ '^^"^^ passed which detached the 
region now forming the States of Illinois and Wisconsin 
from the Territory of Indiana, and organized it as the 
Territon" of Illinois. The re^rion between Lakes Erie, St. 
Clair, Huron, and Michigan had previously, in 1S05. 
been separated from Indiana to form the Territory of 
Michisran. 



*o* 



TOPICS AND SUGGESTED READING AND RESEARCH. 

176. The United States at the Beg-inningr of the 
Nineteenth Century. 

Topics and References. 

I. Population, free and slave, and its distribution. Lamed, 

a. The southwestern and northwestern settlements. 3. Earlv 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 32; 

differences ol interest between communities of the Ohio valley 
and those of the Adantic coast. Roosevelt, The Winning, iii. ch. 
iii. : iv. ch. v. 

4. r^eginning's of the steam engine and of steam navigation. 
H. Adams, liistoty^ iv. 134-135; Thm'ston. ch. iii. and v. 

5. Whitney's •* cotton gin" and its ettects on slavery, llolst, 
United States, i. 351-353: Rhodes, i. 25-27. 

6. Other causes of a sectional division of the States. 

177. The Political ChauLre wrought by Jefferson's 

Election. 

Topics and Rkkkkkncks. 

I. Jefferson's view of the revolution in principles of government. 
— His general aims. a. His tlieory of the functions of the gen- 
ei"al government. Jefferson, jrnV/nt^s (Ford ed.), vii. 133, 451-452, 
viii. 4; Gordy. i. ch. xxiii. : Hoist, C 'ft iUd States, i. 1 77-1 78 ; Hart, 
CoHte-mp^s, iii. 344-347; Hart, J^onnafion, 176-178. 

3. His plans of "peaceable coercion" as a remedy for national 
wrongs. H. Adams, HisiorVy i. 214: Schouler, ii. gq-ioo. 

17 S. The Tripolitan War. 

Topics and References. 

I. Causes of the war. 2. Commodore Dale sent to the Mediter- 
ranean. Parton, y*;;^!''*^'"-'''*"'' *-^h. Ixiii. ; Schouler, ii. 17-20: dordy, 
i. 418-420; Hart, CofUem^'s, iii. 351-355. 

179. The Louisiana Purchase. 

Topics and References. 

I. Cession of Louisiana from Sp.iin to France. 2. American 
feeling on the subject. — Stand taken by the President. 3. Sale 
of the territory by Napoleon to the United States ^^text of treaty 
in MacDonald, ii. 160-165). Jefferson. U'rif:M^s (^Ford ed.), viii. 
145 ; H. Adams, //iston', i. ch. xiii.-x\di. : ii. ch. i.-iii. ; Roosevelt, 
TAe /fV«/;;>rt;, iv. 261-282; Hunt, ch. xxix. : Schouler, ii. 40-58; 
Gordy, i. 421-424; Morse^ /e^'erson, 231-247; Hart, Contemp^s^ 
iii. 363-372 : Oilman. 75-i")3. 

4. The constitutional question involved. 5. Partisan inconsis- 
tencies. 6. Attitude of extreme Federalists. Jefferson, Writings 



328 THE YOUNG NATION HARASSED. 

(Ford ed.), viii. 247; H. Adams, History^ ii. ch. iv.-v. ; Hoist, i. 

183-194; Gordy, i. 425-432; Roosevelt, The Winning, iv. 282- 

284; Hart, Contempts, iii. 373-380; Islorse, Jefferson, 247-258. 
7. Organizations of government in the new territory. H. Adams, 

History, ii. ch, vi.; McMaster, iii. 13-32 ; Gordy, i. 432-438. 

Research. — The more important effects and results that have 
come from the Louisiana Purchase. Am. Hist. Ass^n Reports 
(Davis), 1897, 149-160; Papers (Robertson), i. 253-290. 

180. Secession Plotting. — Burr's Intrigues. — Burr 
and Hamilton Duel. 

Topics and References. 

I. Disunion plotting with Burr. 2. Discomfiture of the plotters. 
— Duel and death of Hamilton. H. Adams, History, ii. ch. viii.; 
McMaster, iii. 47-54; Schouler, ii. 68-74; Gordy, i. ch. xxvi. ; 
Hoist, United States, i. 194-199; Hart, Formation, 188-189; 
Lodge, Hamilton, 245-250; Johnston, Am. Oratio7is (Nott), i. 
1 1 7-1 28. 

181. Presidential Election. 

Topics and References. 

I. Weakening of the Federalist party. — Reelection of Jefferson. 
2. Constitutional change in the mode of election. Morse, Jeffer- 
son, 263-271 ; H. Adams, History, ii. 200-206: Schouler, ii. 74-75. 

182. Burr's Conspiracy in the Southwest. 

Topics and References. 

I. Burr's schemes. 2. Discontent and frontier lawlessness 
that encouraged them. 3. Easy frustration of the conspiracy. 
Parton, Burr, ch. Ixv. ; Roosevelt, T/ie Winning, iv. 284-307 ; 
H. Adams, History, ii. 394-409, iii. ch. x.-xiv. ; McMaster, iii. 54- 
S8; Schouler, ii. 133-138; Hart, Contempts, iii. 356-359; Mac- 
Donald, ii. 165-171. 

183. End of the Tripolitan War. 

Topics and References. 

I. Treaty concluded. 2. Important training of the American 
navy in the war. McMaster, iii. 200-208; Schouler, ii. 7S-77, 
104.-106, 124; H. Adams, History, ii. 425-436. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 329 

184. Renewed Offensiveness of British Conduct. 

Topics and References. 

I. Reversed ruling of British courts. 2. Increased captures of 
American merchantmen. H. Adams, History^ ii. ch. xiv.-xv. ; iii. 
43-53^ 80-102, 197-203; Schouler, ii. 108-I12, 114-118,132-133; 
McMaster, iii. 225. 

185. Prosperity of the Country. — Expansion of 

National Sentiment. 

Topics and References. 

1. Profit and loss in the ocean carrying trade. McMaster, iii. 
225-226. 

2. Exploration of the Rocky Mountain region and beyond. 
Roosevelt, The Wimiing^ iv. ch. vii. ; Hart, Co7itemp^s, iii. 381- 
384. 

3. Increased public revenue. — Extinguishment of debt. 4. Presi- 
dent Jefferson's recommendation of public improvements at na- 
tional expense. 5. Significance of his changed views. Jefferson, 
viii. 494 ; H. Adams, History, iii. 1-21, 345, 348; Moxst, Jefferson, 
292-294. 

Research. — Albert Gallatin and his administration of the Trea- 
sury Department. Stevens, Gallatin, ch. vi. 

186. Abolition of the African Slave Trade. 

Topics and References. 

I. The act fulfilling the intention of the Constitution (text in 
MacDonald, ii. 1 71-176). Hoist, United States, i. 317-328; H. 
Adams, History, iii. 356-367; Schouler, ii. 142-147. 

187. Destruction of Neutral Trade. — British ** Orders 
in Council " and Napoleonic Decrees. 

Topics and References. 

I. Circumstances of the conflict between England and Napo- 
leon. 2. Its reduction to a system of commercial warfare, de- 
structive of neutral trade. 3. Successive orders and decrees of 
the combatants. — Their aim and effect. H. Adams, Histojy, iii. 
388-391, 416-421, iv. 79-127; Gordy, i, 511-540; McMaster, iii. 
248-275; Schouler, ii. 1 56-161, 170-176; Hoist, United States, 



330 THE YOUNG NATION HARASSED. 

i. 200-20I ; Morse, Jefferson^ 286-296 ; Hart, Conte7np''s^ iii. 400- 
403- 

Research. — Importance to the world at large of the resistance 
made by England to Napoleon. — Grounds on which her Orders 
in Council may be defended. Mahan, Iiifiuence of Sea Power, 
ii. ch. xviii.-xix. 

188. British Search and Impressmeut. 

Topics and References. 

I. Increasing insolence of British naval officers. 2. The Chesa- 
peake outrage. H. Adams, History^ iv. ch. i. and vi. ; McMaster, 
iii. 240-246, 253-270; Y{2iXX.^ Formation, li^'Z-K)^ Hart, Contempts, 
iii. 385-400; Schouler, ii. 163-170; Gordy, i. 507-510; Morse, 
Jefferson, 296. 

189. An Experiment in *• Peaceable Coercion." — 
The Embargo Act. 

Topics and References. 

I. The cry for war, and why war did not follow. 2. President Jef- 
ferson's gunboat policy. 3. The non-importation act and the em- 
bargo act (text in MacDonald, ii. 1 76-1 yy). 4. Effect of the embargo 
in the United States. 5. The John Henry intrigue. 6. Failure 
of the embargo to affect the conduct of England or France. 
7. Injury to Jefferson's influence. H. Adams, History, iv. ch. vii.- 
xii., xiv.-xv., XX.; Schouler, ii. 176-186, 194-207; Gordy, i. ch. 
xxxii.-xxxiii. ; McMaster, iii. 276-309 ; Hoist, United States, 
i. 201-215 ; Hildreth, vi. 36-44, 48-58, 69-79, 84-93, 96-113; I^^lt- 
ion, Jefferson, ch. Ixvi. ; Morse, Jeff erson, 296-312,316-317; Hart, 
Contemp''s, iii. 403-406. 

Research. — The character of John Randolph, of Roanoke, and 
his political course. Trent, 89-150 ; H. Adams, Randolph. 

190. Substitution of Non-intercourse for Embargo. 

Topics and References. 

I. Rebellious threatenings in New England. 2. Repeal of 
embargo act. — Suspension of commercial intercourse (text in 
MacDonald, ii. 177-183). H. Adams, History, iv, ch. xvi.-xix. ; 
Hildreth, vi. 11 3-1 38; Gordy, i. ch. xxxiv.-xxxv. ; Schouler, ii. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 331 

207-220; Hoist, United States, i. 215-225; McMaster, iii. 318- 
336. 

191. Political Effects. 

Topics and References. 

I. Reversing of former political doctrines by both parties. Hil- 
dreth, vi. 140-143; McMaster, iii. 197-198. 

192. Territorial Reorganization. 

Topics and References. 

I. Formation of the Territories of Michigan and IlHnois. Hil- 
dreth, vi. 138. 



CHAPTER X. 

SECOND WAR WITH ENGLAND. 1809-1817. 

193. Mr. Erskine's Blunder. — President Madison 
misled. 1809-1810. When Madison took the reins of 
government from Jefferson, on the 4th of March, 1809, the 
outlook in foreign affairs was dark ; but an unexpected 
brightening appeared soon on the British side. The 
British minister then at Washington, Mr. Erskine, re- 
ceived instructions which led him to agree with Presi- 
dent Madison that the orders in council should be with- 
drawn, and that the President, by proclamation, should 
end the interdictions of commerce with Great Britain, 
but should continue them against France. This arrange- 
ment was announced and the President's proclamation 
issued on the 21st of April, to the unspeakable joy of 
the country, and three months of a busy revival of trade 
ensued. It took that length of time for the report of 
what Mr. Erskine had done to reach England and for 
the action of his government on it to be reported back. 
The message when it came was a blow. Erskine had 
flagrantly exceeded his instructions ; his as^ree- 

Erskine's ° 1 • , , • 1 

agreement ment, on which the President had proclaimed 

repudiated. ^ 

a reopenmg of commerce with Great Britain, 
was repudiated, and the orders in council, instead of 
being annulled, were only replaced by a new order, de- 
claring a paper blockade of the whole of Italy, Holland, 
and France. 

The situation was now worse than before. Angry 



SECOND WAR WITH ENGLAND. 333 

feeling on all sides was increased. Erskine was recalled, 
and a new British minister, Mr. Jackson, notorious 
amongst the English diplomats for offensive ways of 
doing business, was sent in his place. Non-intercourse 
was proclaimed again ; but nobody could feel satisfied 
with its effect. The futile measure was maintained, 
however, until the ist of May, 1810, when Act of May 
Congress, not knowing what else to do, restored ^' ^^■'•°" 
freedom to commerce, but authorized the President, if 
England withdrew her orders or France her decrees 
before the 3d of the next March, then in that case to 
prohibit intercourse with the nation that kept them in 
force. 

Mr. Jackson, the new British minister, arrived in 
September, 1809, and was not slow in making himself 
as disagreeable as he was expected to be. Be- Minister 
fore many communications had passed between J^^'^son. 
him and the government, he had offered such insults 
that the latter would receive nothing further from his 
hands. This produced no special consequences ; but 
some foolish Federalists in northern cities made great 
social efforts to show Mr. Jackson that his conduct was 
approved. 

194. The Trickery of Napoleon. 1809-1811. In 
the behavior of Great Britain at this time there was 
really less of practical hostility to the United States than 
in the doings of the despotic master of France. The 
embargo act had suited the aims of Napoleon's Napoleon's 
** continental system ; " but he was angered by SJIffntM- 
the non-intercourse act, which interdicted trade *'°^"® ^<'*- 
with France, and not with her subject-allies, Holland, 
Naples, and Spain. That offence to him was increased 
by the mistake which reopened commerce with Great 
Britain during three busy months. He had begun, 



334 EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

therefore, a new series of spoliations, more outrageous 
than his earlier ones, not only ordering seizures and con- 
fiscations of American vessels and cargoes in Spanish 
and Neapolitan ports, but treating their crews as pris- 
oners of war. In March, 1810, he issued secretly a 
The Decree g^^^^al decree, known as the Decree of Ram- 
boSSt" bouillet, which swept into his net all American 
1810. ships within his reach, and when his brother 

Louis, whom he had made king of Holland, failed to 
carry out the decree in Dutch ports, he drove him from 
the throne and annexed Holland to France. The plun- 
der secured was so great that it appears in Napoleon's 
own estimate of his revenue for the year as amounting 
to $6,000,000, and other estimates have made it more 
nearly ten millions than six. 

The act passed by Congress on the ist of May, 18 10, 

repealing the non-intercourse act, but providing for the 

revival of it against one or the other of the 

Promised ,. ^ • ^ ^ • 

revocation powers at war, accordmg to their behavior, 

of FTench ... 

decrees, suggested a characteristic piece of trickery to 
Napoleon's mind. He gave notice (August 5, 
1810) to the American minister at Paris ''that the 
decrees of Berlin and Milan are revoked, and that after 
November i, they will cease to have effect, — it being 
understood that in consequence of this declaration the 
English are to revoke their orders in council, and re- 
nounce the new principles which they have wished to 
establish ; or that the United States, conformably to 
.the act you have just communicated, cause their rights 
to be respected by the English."^ To one of his own 
ministers he said at the same time, "We commit our- 
selves to nothing," — which was true. His scheme was 
to push the United States into hostilities with England, 
1 H. Adams, History of the United States, v. 255. 



SECOND WAR WITH ENGLAND. 335 

while he should do as he pleased in the matter of the 
decrees. The American government was not critical 
of the notice received from France ; it assumed that the 
Berlin and Milan decrees would be revoked as promised, 
on the 1st of November, and that revocation meant re- 
stitution of the property seized. Accordingly, on the 
2d of November President Madison proclaimed president 
the revocation, and interdicted commercial in- JJociama? 
tercourse with Great Britain, to take effect on ^°"' ■'•^■'■°- 
and after February 2, 181 1. But weeks and months 
passed without bringing anything from France to show 
that the decrees were not in force, and no questioning 
could draw a distinct answer as to what had been or 
would be done. Publication of Napoleon's cor- Napoleon's 
respondence has made it known since that, as ^®^c^®^- 
late as April, 181 1, he was ordering his ministers *' to 
gain time, leaving the principles of the matter a little 
obscure until we see the United States take sides." 

195. Occupation of West Florida. — Louisiana ad- 
mitted as a State. 1810-1812. In another quarter the 
foreign relations of the country were complicated at this 
time. Since 1808 the people of Spain had been strug- 
gling to break the yoke which their imbecile court 
allowed Napoleon to lay upon their necks. The whole 
Spanish colonial empire was in consequent disorder, 
and revolutionary movements in most of the American 
provinces were taking place. In the district of Revolution 
West Florida (see Map IV.) that adjoined New ^^^Jl* 
Orleans many Americans had settled, and they ^^^^' 
found the opportunity good for a revolution of their own. 
Accordingly, in the summer and fall of 18 10, they 
seized the Spanish fort at Baton Rouge, held a conven- 
tion, declared independence, and applied for annexation 
to the United States. President Madison would not 



336 EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

recognize their revolution, but deemed it proper, in 
such circumstances, to take possession of the region, 
which the United States had been claiming since 1803 
(see sect. 179). It was occupied, accordingly, by Gov- 
ernor Claiborne, of the Orleans Territory, in December, 

1 8 10. Congress approved the President's action, and 
passed, at the same time, an act authorizing the inhab- 
itants of the Territory of Orleans to adopt a constitution 
preparatory to admission as a State. The new State 

thus formed received the name Louisiana, and 

TI16 St&to ol 

Louisiana, was admitted to the Union in April, 18 12. 

1812 

West Florida as far eastward as Pearl River 
was annexed to it ; the remainder, to the Perdido, was 
declared to be a part of Mississippi Territory, though 
possession was not taken until 18 13. 

196. Federalist Opposition to the Admission of 
Louisiana. 1811. The proposed admission of Louisiana 
revived a threatening spirit in the New England Fed- 
eralists, who denied the constitutional right of the exist- 
ing Union to add new States to itself (see sect. 179). 
Speech of Their then leader, Josiah Ouincy, of Boston, 
Qtdncy, declared in debate (January 14, 181 1): *' If 

1811. |-|^jg i^jij passes, it is my deliberate opinion that 
it is virtually a dissolution of the Union ; that it will 
free the States from their moral obligation ; and, as it 
will be the right of all, so it will be the duty of some, 
definitely to prepare for a separation, — amicably if they 
can, violently if they must." 

197. Dissolution of the United States Bank. 1811. 
In home affairs an agitating question was raised by the 
approaching expiration of the charter of the United 
States Bank. The bank had proved useful to the busi- 
ness of the country and to the government, and Mr. 
Gallatin, the able Secretary of the Treasury, was most 



SECOND WAR WITH ENGLAND. 33/ 

anxious for its preservation ; but jealousy and distrust 
of it in the Republican party were rooted too deeply to 
be overcome. Congress refused to extend the charter, 
and the bank in due time was dissolved. 

198. Feeling for and against War with England. 
1811. Meantime, relations with England had not been 
changed seriously by the fresh interdiction of trade. 
Still obstinate on the subject of the orders in council, 
and contending with truth that Napoleon's decrees had 
not been revoked, the British government was showing, 
nevertheless, a more conciHatory disposition, by sending 
an agreeable minister to Washington, and offering a 
partial reparation of the outrage on the Chesapeake. Of 
actual provocations to war, so far as concerned the old 
grievances, there were less from England in i8ii, and 
more from France, than there had been at any time within 
the past five years ; but an outbreak of Indian hostility, 
occurring that summer in the Indiana Territory, was sup- 
posed to have been instigated by emissaries Tecumseh's 
from Canada, and became a new charge against iea|Je^"^^ 
England in the long account of wrongs. Te- ^^^^' 
cumseh, or Tecumthe, a Shawnee chief of ability, as- 
sisted by his brother, styled the Prophet, had renewed 
the undertaking of Pontiac, to form a league of tribes 
for resistance to the advance of the white race. The 
territorial governor, William Henry Harrison, with a 
force of regulars and volunteers, broke up the 
movement in a sharp battle fought on the Tippecanoe, 
Tippecanoe (November 7, 181 1). Tecumseh, 
who was absent at the time, found his project frustrated, 
and took refuge in Canada, giving color to the belief 
that he had acted under an influence from the authori- 
ties there. This caused some fresh excitement of anti- 
English feeling ; and so did an encounter that happened 



338 EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

in May, between the American frigate President and a 
Affair of British sloop of war, the Little Belt. Exactly 
Beu^"*^® how or why they came to exchange shots, and 
1811. which fired first, was never made clear. The 

Little Belt, a smaller vessel than the President, suffered 
badly in the short fight. 

The temper of the country does not seem to have 
been touched very sharply by these events, and the in- 
fluences opposed to war were strong. Despite all losses 
and restrictions, the merchant shipping of the United 
States was enjoying a more profitable activity than it 
was likely to have in a state of declared war with Eng- 
land, the powerful mistress of the seas. It was prin- 
cipally a New England interest, and it confirmed New 
England Federalism in leanings toward Great Britain, 
in detestation of Napoleon and France, and in dread 
of the party in power. On the other hand, 
ing, north the south and the new western States had no 

and south. 

maritime interest, and adhered to the old feel- 
ings of the Revolution, against England and in favor 
of France. Pennsylvania was with the south in those 
feelings, and New York leaned the same way. 

199. The •• War Hawks " in Congress. — Henry 
Clay. 1811-1812. The situation was one in which 
slight influences could turn the scale for or against 
war. The decisive influence came from a group of 
young men who appeared in the House of Represent- 
atives that year. We may almost say that it came 
from a single member of the group, its eloquent leader, 
Henry Clay. Clay was a Virginian by birth, but had 
settled in Kentucky after finishing his studies in law, 
and had risen quickly to distinction in that State. 
Twice, already, he had filled vacancies for a few months 
in the Senate of the United States; now, in i8ii, he 



SECOND WAR WITH ENGLAND. 339 

came to a seat in the House of Representatives, and 
took command, as it were ; was made Speaker, "speaker" 
and ruled the House as no one in the Speaker's ^^^y* •'■^■'■^• 
chair had ruled it before. Along with brilliancy and 
power as an orator of the popular type, he had the 
personal force, the enthusiasm, and the self-confident, 
high spirit of a natural leader of men. He was hot 
with the anger of Kentucky over the humiliations of 
the country, especially those coming from British hands ; 
and he found a number of young members more than 
ready to join him in a demand for war. John C. Cal- 
houn, of South Carolina, was a prominent member of 
the group. 

The vehemence of these ''war hawks," as they were 
styled, soon produced a great effect. Congress passed 
bills for increasing the army, for raising volunteers, and 
for calling out the state militia, and some very inade- 
quate provision for strengthening the navy was made; 
but the controlling idea of the war party was to prepare 
for a conquest of Canada, and they deprecated the 
thought of much resistance to the great power of Eng- 
land at sea. Events proved them to be utterly mistaken 
in their forecast of the projected war. 

200. War declared. June 18, 1812. The peace 
party included many Republicans, conspicuously John 
Randolph, a Virginian of erratic genius ; but the war 
party, helped by the disclosure at this time of the John 
Henry correspondence (see sect. 189), had its way. 
President Madison, with reluctance, began the action 
it desired, on the ist of April, 1812, by recommending 
an embargo for sixty days, which was under- 
stood to be preliminary to a declaration of lorninety 

dfl.vs 

war. Congress enacted the embargo for ninety 

days ; but, on the ist of June, at the end of sixty days, a 



340 EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

message from the President recommended that war be 
declared. A bill embodying the portentous declaration 
passed the House on the 4th, the Senate on the 17th, 
and was signed by the President on the i8th. It was 
carried by southern and western votes, against the 
opposition of New England and New York, and at a 
moment when the principal reason for war was removed ; 
for news came in July that the British govern- 
councii ment had withdrawn the offending orders in 
June 17, ' council, and had announced the fact in Parlia- 

1812. 

ment one day before the American declaration 
of war. Furthermore, it had sent proposals for an ar- 
mistice and a renewal of negotiations, in case hostilities 
should have been begun ; but it gave no sign of willing- 
ness to abandon impressments from American ships, 
and the authorities at Washington refused the truce. 
Defence of "sailors' rights" became then the single 
object of the war. 

201. Opening Disasters. — Hull's Surrender at De- 
troit. — Battle of Queenstown Heights. 1812. The 
nation was undertaking a war which large masses of its 
people resented or disapproved ; for which its economic 
condition and its military organization were wretchedly 
prepared ; and to conduct which its officers of experi- 
ence were few and old. That the sanguine expectations 
of the ''war hawks" would be disappointed was an al- 
most inevitable result. The disappointment began with 
the first invasion of Canada, undertaken from Detroit, 
g^ig^ in July, by a Revolutionary veteran of good 
Detroit. record, General William Hull. The British 
authorities in Canada had acted more vigorously than 
the Americans, and Hull found them readier to strike 
at him than he at them. He fell back to his fort at 
Detroit, was followed and beleaguered by British troops 



SECOND WAR WITH ENGLAND. 



341 



savage 



LAKE ONTARIO 



and the 

warriors of Tecum- 
seh, and surren- 
dered to them, Au- 
gust 16. The un- 
fortunate general 
was afterward dis- 
graced from the 
army by court-mar- 
tial, and only saved 
from a death sen- 
tence by the Presi- 
dent's compassion; 
but later opinion 
lays blame for the 
disaster quite as 
much on his mili- 
tary superiors as 
on Hull. 

The next attempt 
to enter Canada 
had no better suc- 
cess. It was made 
on the 13th of Oc- 
tober from Lewis- 
ton, on the Niagara 
River, below the 
Falls, by forces 
under General Van 
Rensselaer about 
6000 strong. A 
footing on the op- 
posite heights of 
Queenstown was gained by about 900 of Van Rensselaer's 




MAP OF NIAGARA FRONTIER IN 1812-14. 
Reproduced, with a few adaptations, from a " Gazetteer 
of the Province of Upper Canada," published in 1813. 



342 EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

men ; but reinforcements came to the British, while none 
reached the Americans, and the latter, in a helpless posi- 
tion, had to lay down their arms. The British com- 
mander. General Brock, received a mortal wound in the 
fight. The officer who won most distinction in this bat- 
tle was Lieutenant-Colonel Winfield Scott. 

202. Naval Triumphs. 1812. While disaster at- 
tended the American operations of war on land, the 
little navy of the United States was winning laurels at 
sea. Its total count of war-ships was but i8, large and 
small, only three of which were ready for service when 
hostilities began ; and against it was a navy of not less 
than a thousand ships. But, ship for ship, in single en- 
counters, the American vessels proved to be generally 
better in build, stronger in armament, more accurate 

in gunnery, more skilful in seamanship, and 
stitution the English were astonished and dismayed by 
Guerri- the results of the sea-fighting that occurred. 

On the 19th of August the frigate Constitu- 
tion, Captain Isaac Hull, captured the British frigate 
Guerri^re, after a battle of two hours. On the i8th of 
October the British sloop-of-war Frolic was taken by 
the American sloop Wasp ; but both were caught soon 
qijjQ after by a bigger British man-of-war. Seven 

sta"es*an(i ^^.ys later the frigate Macedonia surrendered 
doni?,^°^ to Captain Decatur, commanding the United 
stftution States ; and the year's record of naval victories 
Java!^^ was closed on the 29th of December, when 
^^^^' the Constitution destroyed the Java in a battle 

off the coast of Brazil. Meanwhile, a swarm of commis- 
sioned privateers was pillaging British commerce almost 
as heavily as British cruisers pillaged that of the United 
States. 

203. Second Disaster in the West. 1813. Before 



SECOND WAR WITH ENGLAND. 343 

the year closed Commodore Chauncey had put a small 
naval squadron afloat on Lake Ontario, and Lieutenant 
Elliot had gone to Lake Erie to do the same ; for little 
could be done toward recovering the ground lost in the 
west until full control of the lakes was secured. The 
western command had been given to General Harrison, 
and late in the fall he began a movement from Indiana 
for the recovery of Detroit ; but 900 of the best of his 
troops, under General Winchester, proceeding winches- 
too carelessly in advance, were overpowered in j^uary!^*' 
January by British and Indian forces, on the ^^^^' 
river Raisin, not far from what is now the city of Mon- 
roe. Four hundred perished, including sick and wounded, 
who were given up to the tomahawks of the savages ; 
the survivors were made prisoners of war. This fresh 
disaster checked the movement till the following year. 

204. Reelection of President Madison. 1812. Ex- 
cepting the repulse of a British attack on Ogdensburg, 
there had been nothing but disaster in the military 
operations of the first year. In naval warfare there had 
been nothing but success ; and, probably, it was the 
naval victories that saved the war party from overthrow 
in the presidential election that fall. Mr. Madison was 
reelected, defeating a combination of dissatisfied Re- 
publicans and Federalists, who voted for DeWitt Clinton 
of New York. Daniel Webster was one of the Federal- 
ist congressmen elected in New Hampshire that year. 

205. Naval Occurrences on Salt and Fresh Water. 
1813. On salt water the naval triumphs of 1812 were 
not equalled in the following year. Only two small 
armed vessels were taken from the enemy, while a sore 
reverse was suffered, the unfortunate frigate Chesa- 
peake succumbing to the Shannon (June i), in a fight 
that was no chance encounter, but a duel, deliberately 



344 EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

planned. Captain Bloke of the Shannon had challenged 

Captain Lawrence of the Chesapeake, and 

peake and waited for him outside of Boston Bay. The 

the Shan- , . , , . , 

non. June, two ships were about equal in men and guns, 
but the Shannon had the better trained crew, 
and reduced her antagonist in fifteen minutes to a 
helpless state. Captain Lawrence, wounded mortally, 
cried, " Don't giv^e up the ship," but it was a vain appeal. 

By this time enough of the enormous navy of Eng- 
land was concentrated on the American coast to blockade 
British ^^e principal harbors and shut in most of the 
hiockade. American fleet ; but privateers, built and rigged 
to outsail every enemy afloat, were numerous at sea and 
actively at work. 

It was on the inland fresh waters that the navy now 
distinguished itself, and the hero of the year was Captain 
Oliver H. Perry, detailed to command on Lake Erie and 
the upper lakes. At Presque Isle, now Erie, Perry con- 
structed two brigs and three schooners in great haste, 
and brought five more small vessels from the Niagara, at 
Buffalo, to make up his fleet. With these, on the loth 
of September, off the islands near the mouth 

Perry's - -, 

victory on of Sandusky River, he encountered a squad- 
Lake Erie. J. . , 1 • , ^- • -ii 1 r 

September rou ot SIX vcsscls which Captain Barclav, of 

10 1813 ' 

the British navy, had fitted out with equal diffi- 
culty at the western end of the lake. The battle was 
obstinate on both sides. Perry's flagship, the Lawrence, 
became so injured and unmanageable, and the carnage 
on her was so fearful, that the surviving officers could do 
nothing but strike their flag ; but the indomitable com- 
mander had left the ship before that occurred, — had 
transferred himself to another vessel, the Niagara, on 
whose deck he won the fiirht. 

206. Recovery of Detroit and the West. — Futile 



SECOND WAR WITH ENGLAND. 



345 




Campaigning on the New York Frontier and the St. 
Lawrence. 1813. ** We have met the enemy and they 
are ours " was Per- 
ry's famous despatch 
to General Harrison, 
for whose movement 
on Detroit this con- 
quest of the lakes 
cleared the way. 
Both Harrison and 
Perry made haste to 
Detroit River, from 
which the British 
forces and Tecum- 
seh's Indians re- 
treated together, 
through Canada, 
making their way to 
the Thames River and up that stream. Harrison pur- 
sued and overtook them near Moravian Town, a few 
miles above Chatham. In the battle fought Battieoithe 
there (October 5), Tecumseh was killed, his o?Ser%, 
followers were scattered, three quarters of the ^®^^" 
British troops were captured, and the conquest of west- 
ern Canada, for the time being, was complete. 

On the New York frontier there was much activity, 
with nothing but momentary results. The little town of 
York, capital of Canada West, now grown into Burning of 
the city of Toronto, was captured, and its pub- ^"^' 
lie buildings were burned, — an act of vandalism which 
General Dearborn, the American commander, disclaimed 
and denounced. Fort George, near the mouth of the 
Niagara, was taken, but the garrison escaped, and drove 
back a pursuing force (at Stony Creek) with heavy loss. 



WESTERN LAKE ERIE IN THE WAR OF l8l2. 



34^ EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

Meantime, the important naval station at Sackett's Har- 
bor was exposed to attack and nearly lost. It was saved 
by the capable energy of Jacob Brown, a New York 
GeneraiJa- ^nilitia officer, who won a general's commission 
cob Brown, jj^ ^Y\q regular army by that service, and was 
advanced not long afterward to the chief command on 
the northern frontier. Nothing was done to make use 
of the positions gained at the western end of Lake On- 
tario, but all possible forces, even Harrison's, were 
drawn eastward for an expedition down the St. Law- 
rence, to capture Montreal. The expedition commanded 
by General Wilkinson (of former notoriety in connection 
with Burr, see sect. 182) failed miserably, and was 
abandoned at an early stage, after an ignominious engage- 
ment known as the battle of Chrystler's Farm. Then 
the British, more promptly than the Americans, returned 
their forces to the neglected Niagara frontier. In De- 
cember they recovered Fort George, crossed the river, 
surprised the important Fort Niagara, and proceeded, 
with their Indian allies, to ravage the whole American 
shore of the river. They burned the village of Buffalo, 
in retaliation for some equally barbarous destruction by 
the American garrison which retreated from Fort George. 

207. The Creek T^ar. 1813. Late in the sum- 
mer of 1813 the Creek Indians, in Mississippi Territory, 
formerly half won to the projects of Tecumseh, and 
freshly stirred up by both English and Spanish emis- 
saries, rose against the white settlers and committed a 
horrible massacre at Fort Mims (August 30). General 
Andrew Jackson, of the Tennessee militia, was put in 
command of forces sent against them from that State, 
and carried on an energetic campaign for seven months, 
completely breaking the power of the tribe. 

208. Fall of Napoleon. — Its Effect on the War in 



SECOND WAR WITH ENGLAND. 34/ 

America. 1814. At the opening of the year 1 8 14 there 
was not much promise in the prospects of the war, nor 
did the prospects brighten as the year advanced. The 
military despotism of Napoleon was tottering to its fall. 
Half a million of Germans, Russians, and Austrians were 
in northern France, moving irresistibly upon 

The allios 

Paris, while the British army of Wellington in France, 
fought its way across the Pyrenees from Spain. 
On the last day of March the victorious allies entered 
Paris ; on the 4th of April the abdication of Napoleon 
was signed. The forces of Great Britain were then free 
to be turned upon the United States. 

209. Last Attempt against Canada. — British Ad- 
vance to Lake Champlain. — Macdonough's Naval Vic- 
tory. 1814. Before the effects of this great change in 
circumstances were felt, one last attempt to carry the 
war into Canada was made. General Jacob Brown was 
in command, with General Winfield Scott among his 
brigadiers. Early in July Brown crossed the Niagara 
from Buffalo and took Fort Erie, which commanded the 
entrance to the river from the lake (see Map on page 
341). Thence he advanced down the river to Chippewa, 
near Niagara Falls, where a sharp engagement occurred 
(July 5). The enemy retreated to Fort George, and 
Brown followed ; but they were reinforced, and he was 
not, and he found it necessary to draw back. ^^^^^ ^j 
At Lundy's Lane, so called, near the Falls, he LSeJjuiy 
made a stand, and there, on the 25th of July, ^^' ■^^^*- 
a desperate battle was fought, in which both Brown and 
Scott received serious wounds. The slaughter, nearly 
equal in the two armies, was very great. Both claimed 
a victory, but the gain belonged to the English, since 
the Americans retired to Fort Erie and were besieged 
there within a few days. The siege and defence of the 



34S EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

fort, for nearly two months, were notable incidents of 
the war. In the end the besiegers were baffled, but the 
heroic defence had been fruitless ; the works were de- 
stroyed and abandoned, and the American forces came 
back to their own soil. 

There was no longer any thought of a conquest of 
Canada ; the war had become one of defence against 
powerful attacks. An invading army from Canada had 
advanced to the head of Lake Champlain, and a squad- 
ron of small vessels and gunboats was in preparation to 
cooperate with it, in a movement toward the Hudson, 
on the old route of Burgoyne. Commodore Thomas 
Macdonough prepared a similar but weaker squadron to 
oppose the advance, and waited for it in Plattsburg Bay ; 
Battles of ^vhile General Macomb held a fortified position 
septlSSf" "^^^^" Plattsburg with scarcely 2000 American 
11.1814. troops. On the nth of September the invad- 
ing forces made their simultaneous attacks by lake and 
land, and were defeated in both. Their invasion was 
brought to a sudden end. Mr. Roosevelt, in his "Naval 
History of the War of 181 J," ranks Macdonough's ex- 
ploit above every other in the war, and says of him that 
"down to the time of the Civil War he is the greatest 
figure in our naval historv." 

210. Raids on the Atlantic Coast. — Capture and 
barbarous treatment of Washington. 1814. The 
Atlantic coast was now suffering, not only from a close 
blockade, but from ravaging attacks, especially in Chesa- 
peake Bay and farther south. In August a strong force 
of veteran British troops landed in Patuxent River, Mary- 
captTue of l^iitl. and marched to Washington, meeting only 
ton.^Aufust ^ feeble resistance at Bladensburg (August 24), 
24,1814. fiom volunteers and militia, who were easily 
put to flight. The national capital was taken ; the un- 



SECOND WAR WITH ENGLAND. 



349 



finished capitol building, the President's house, all but 
one of the other government buildings, and many pri- 
vate dwellings were burned, in retaliation, it was said, 
for the destruc- 
tion of public 
buildings at 
York. The oc- 
currence was 
shameful to both 
nations : to the 
English as an act 
of deliberate bar- 
barity on the part 
of a commanding 
officer ; to our 
own as an exhi- 
bition of feeble- 
ness in the gov- 
ernment which 
guarded its own 
seat in so negli- 
gent a way. The 
Secretary of 
War, General 
Armstrong, was 
removed in con- 
sequence, and MARYLAND IN THE WAR OF l8l2. 

his department 

was conducted for a time by the Secretary of State, Mr. 

Monroe. 

The capture of Washington was followed a fortnight 
later by an attack on Baltimore ; but that city was saved 
by the stout defence of Fort McHenry, at the entrance 
to its port. Through the night of September 14 the 




350 EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

fort was bombarded heavily by the British fleet, and 
Attack on ^^^ sight of its flag, Still floating at sunrise on 
September ^^^ ramparts, inspired a young Baltimorean, 
14,1814. Francis Scott Key, to write the song of "The 
Star Spangled Banner." 

211. Disheartening State of the Country. — New 
England Disaffection. — The Hartford Convention. 
1814. The affairs of the country were now in a most 
disheartening state. Its military forces were on the 
defensive everywhere ; the few vessels of its navy were 
mostly shut up in blockaded ports ; the resources of its 
treasury seemed exhausted almost hopelessly ; its com- 
merce was nearly extinct ; outside of New England the 

banks had stopped payments in specie, and coin 
land dissat- had disappeared ; distress and discontent were 
with the increasing, and the New England disaffection 

was taking a serious tone. Individually, a 
large part of the New Englanders had done their part 
patriotically in the war; Massachusetts had furnished 
even more than her share of recruits to the army ; but 
officially the attitude of the dominant Federalists had 
been obstructive throughout. Several of the States had 
refused to obey calls for their militia ; banks and capi- 
talists were deterred by strong influences from subscrib- 
ing to national loans ; the Massachusetts legislature 
adopted resolutions, in February, 1814, that were wholly 
in the spirit of the Virginia Resolutions of 1798 (see 
sect. 172). A suspicion, which lacked proof, that the 
blockading fleet off New London had been signalled 
to from shore with blue lights, gave rise to the name 
'' Blue-Light Federalists " for the anti-war party as a 
whole. 

In the fall of 18 14 Massachusetts voted money to sup- 
port a state army of 10,000 men, and invited her New 



SECOND WAR WITH ENGLAND. 35 1 

England neighbors to send delegates to a convention 
which met at Hartford, December 15. Only Massa- 
chusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island were officially 
represented, and the extremists among the delegates 
appear to have been checked by moderate men. The 
only known action of the convention, in a secret session 
of three weeks, was a published report which Hartford 
demanded certain amendments of the Federal December"' 
Constitution, and recommended the holding of ^^^^' 
another convention, '*to decide on the course which a 
crisis so momentous might seem to demand." What 
ultimate action was contemplated has been always a 
question in dispute; but the men of the Hartford Con- 
vention were looked upon as conspiring secessionists, 
and that stigma was on them to the end of their lives. 
So far as disloyalty to the Union had arisen in New 
England, it expired then. Peace came unexpectedly, so 
soon after the Hartford Convention adjourned that all 
the feelings represented in it were swept away. 

212. Negotiations at Ghent. — The Treaty of Peace. 
1814. Since the 7th of August, 18 14, commissioners 
from the United States and Great Britain had been ne- 
gotiating at Ghent. Their meeting was the remote con- 
sequence of an offer of mediation made by the Russian 
government in September, 18 12. President Madison 
had accepted the offer, and sent Messrs. Gallatin and 
Bayard to act with John Quincy Adams, our minister to 
Russia ; but when those gentlemen reached Russia, they 
found that Great Britain had declined the offer. Soon 
afterward, however, the British government made known 
its willingness to discuss terms of peace directly with 
representatives of the United States ; whereupon Henry 
Clay and Jonathan Russell were commissioned to join 
Adams, Gallatin, and Bayard at Ghent, where the con- 



352 EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

ference was to be held. Three English commissioners 
met them, and parleyings went on for more than 
British ^^^^^ months, with small hope of success till 
demands. ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ j^^ ^^^^ ^^^ British commis- 
sioners demanded part of Maine, and the setting apart 
of nearly the whole of the old Northwestern Territory, 
along the lakes and to the Mississippi, to be a wide belt of 
neutral land, given up to Indian tribes. These demands 
were so emphatically refused, and the American com- 
missioners showed such readiness to break up the con- 
ference and go home, that more reasonable instructions 
came from London to the gentlemen on the other side. 
With all her advantages in the war, England was most 
anxious for peace. She was weary of war ; the situation 
in Europe was still precarious, and her commerce was 
badly broken by the American privateers. Hence the 
American commissioners, by stout insistence, secured 
better terms in the end than the condition of their 
country gave them reason to expect. But the treaty 
signed on the 24th of December, 18 14, contained no 

mention of the naval searches and impress- 
Terms of ^ 

theueaty ments that had been the chief provocation to 

of Ghent, ^ 

December war. The question about them was settled 

24, 1814. 

by being dropped ; for the English stopped 
practising what they still held to be their right. Other 
important questions, relating to the Newfoundland fisher- 
ies and the navigation of the Mississippi, were postponed 
for future settlement ; and so the treaty was scarcely 
more than an agreement that matters between the two 
nations should be as they were before the war. There 
was little to show for the 30,000 lives it was estimated 
to have cost the country, and the hundred millions, or 
nearly, that it had added to the national debt. 

213. Battle of New Orleans. 1815. Unfortunately, 



SECOND WAR WITH ENGLAND. 353 

the news of peace did not reach America in time to 
prevent the bloodiest battle of the war, fought a full 
fortnight after the treaty was signed. A formidable 
expedition against New Orleans, from Jamaica, had 
reached Louisiana in the latter part of De- 
cember, and had been making slow approaches irom 

. ^ 1 T 1 1 Jamaica. 

to the City, where General Jackson, the ener- 
getic Tennesseean, held command. After much cannon- 
ading of the breastworks behind which Jackson had 
placed his men, the British commander, General Paken- 
ham, ordered an assault. It was repulsed by so murder- 
ous a fire from the rifles of the backwoodsmen of the 
west that more than 2000 of the assailants fell. General 
Pakenham was among the killed, and his successor in 
command made a cautious retreat. 

Protected by their works, the total loss of the Amer- 
icans, in killed and wounded, was only 71. News of this 
remarkable victory went through the country almost 
simultaneously with the despatches from Ghent. It 
made General Jackson the principal hero of the war. 

214. War with Algiers. 1815. Before the year 
closed, the country had new cause to regard its little 
navy with pride. The Dey of Algiers had become 
insolent and piratical again, and needed to be chastised. 
As promptly as possible after the settling of peace with 
England, Commodore Decatur was sent with a strong 
squadron to perform that task. It was done so effec- 
tually that the Dey signed a treaty in June, on Decatur's 
deck, surrendering his captives, paying indemnities, and 
renouncing all claim in future to a tribute of gifts. It 
was the last of our troubles with the pirates of the 
Barbary coast. 

215. Final Decay and Dissolution of the Federalist 
Party. One of the consequences of all that had occurred 



354 EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

was the disappearance of the Federalist party within the 
next few years. Its unpopular temper (see sect. 161) 
and the disloyal attitude of some among its leaders 
toward the Union and the national government were 
among the causes of its dissolution ; but these were not 
all. In reality, it had been superseded by its oppo- 
nents, who had taken into their own hands and were 
carrying out the nationalizing aims for which the party 
of Hamilton was formed. Broad constructions of the 
Constitution and strong^ claims for the o:en- 

Causeol ° . ^ 

Federalist eral s^ovcrnment were not being disputed any 
weakness. . . 

longer. A little later those disputes would 
be revived, as we shall see, but meantime the Federal- 
ists had lost their footing as an opposition party, and 
had no ground to stand upon, after the grievances of 
the war were cleared away. Their organization fell to 
pieces, and they strayed into other political camps. In 
the presidential election of 1816 they cast but 34 elec- 
toral votes, from Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Del- 
aware, for Rufus King, of New York. James Monroe, 
who had been Secretary of State under Madison since 
181 1, and acting Secretary of War during some months 
in 1 8 14-15, was chosen president by 183 votes. 

216. Protective Tariff. — United States Bank. — 
Internal Improvements. 1816. The extent to which 
Hamiltonian doctrines and measures were now accepted 
in the Jeffersonian party was shown in the last year of 
Madison's administration, by the adoption of an avow- 
edly protective tariff, by the creation of a new national 

bank, and by the passage through Congress of 

Demands . • . • r • • ^i 

lorprotec- a large appropriation for improving the navi- 

tlve tarill. ^ . -, ^ '^ t i ^ ^ 

gation of rivers and building roads and canals. 
For eight years past, non-intercourse, embargo, and war 
had been shutting out foreign goods and giving home 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 355 

manufactures the most effective '* protection " they 
could possibly have. When that was taken away by 
the return of peace, the manufacturers cried aloud for 
the protection of a higher tariff, and Congress acted 
upon their appeal. Between the interests of the makers 
and the interests of the consumers of things the former 
carried the day, as they have done ever since. Sin- 
gularly enough, the champions of the protective policy 
arose in the non-manufacturing south, Cal- 
houn and Clay in the lead, while Webster and land's 
others from New England opposed it with 
voice and vote. New England cared less at the time 
for her manufactures than for her shipping interests, 
which languished after the war. 

The appropriation for internal improvements was 
proposed by Calhoun, and passed by a small majority, 
but vetoed by Madison, who held with Jefferson that an 
amendment of the Constitution was needed first. This 
question raised one of the issues on which new party 
lines were to be drawn. 



TOPICS AND SUGGESTED READING AND RESEARCH. 

193. Mr. Erskine's Blunder. — President Madison 
misled. 1809-1810. 

Topics and References. 

I. Agreement with the British minister repudiated in England. 
2. Non-intercourse proclaimed again. — The repealing act of May 
I, 1810. 3. Conduct of the new British minister, Mr. Jackson. 
McMaster, iii. 339-362 ; H. Adams, v. ch. iii.-vi. ; Schouler, ii. 
313-317, 320-323 ; Hildreth, vi. 165-179, 183-194, 196-207 ; Quincy, 
195-204; Gay, 283-289. 



356 SECOND WAR WITH ENGLAND. 

194. The Trickery of Napoleon. 

Topics and References. 

I. Hostility of Napoleon. — His increased spoliations. 2. His 
promised revocation of decrees. 3. President Madison's conse- 
quent proclamation, 4. Subsequent conduct of Napoleon. H. 
Adams, v. ch. vii.-xiv., xvi., xviii. ; McMaster, iii. 362-369, 391- 
399, 408-411; Madison, Letters, ii. 508-511, 518-520, 523-525; 
Quincy, 226-235; Hunt, 310-313; Schouler, ii. 334-344, 362-364; 
Hildreth, vi. 214-223, 232-234; Gay, 289-300, 315-319. 

196. Occupation of West Florida. — Louisiana 
made a State. 1810-1812. 

Topics and References. 

I. Revolutionary movement in part of West Florida. — Posses- 
sion taken by the United States. 2. State organization of Louisi- 
ana. — Division of West Florida. McMaster, iii. 369-375, 378- 
379; H. Adams, v. 305-315, 319-325; Schouler, ii. 345-348; Hil- 
dreth, vi. 223-226. 

196. Federalist Opposition to the Admission of 

Louisiana. 

Topics and References. 

I. Speech of Josiah Quincy. Quincy, 205-218; Schouler, ii. 
348-349 ; H. Adams, v. 325-327 ; McMaster, iii. 375-378 ; Hildreth, 
vi. 226-228; Hart, Contemp''s, iii. 410-414. 

197. Dissolution of the United States Bank. 

Topics and References. 

I. Refusal to renew the charter of the bank. H. Adams, v. 
327-337 ; McMaster, iii. 379-390 ; Schouler, ii. 350-353 ; Hildreth, 
vi. 211-212. 

198. Feeling for and against War with England. 

1811. 
Topics and References. 

1. Relations with England in 1811. 2. Schemes of the Shawnee 
chief Tecumseh. — Supposed complicity of the English. — Battle 
of Tippecanoe. 3. Affair of the " Little Belt." 4. Feeling at the 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 35/ 

north, and at the south and west. H. Adams, vi. ch. i.-v. ; Schouler, 
"• 357-360, 365-370; Hildreth, vi. 242-248, 251-259; McMaster, 
iii. 528-536, 402-406, 412-423. 

199. The "War Hawks" in Congress. — Henry- 
Clay. 1811-1812. 

Topics and References. 

I. The group of '• war hawks." — Clay, Calhoun, and their 
associates. 2. The plans of the war party. Schouler, ii. 345, 
371-374; Schurz, Clay, i. 67-83; McMaster, iii. 427-441; H. 
Adams, vi. 122-153 ; Hoist, United States, 1. 225-230 ; Hildreth, 
vi. 259-260, 262-287. 

200. War declared. June 18, 1812. 

Topics and References. 

I. Action of President and Congress (text in MacDonald, ii. 183- 
192). — Embargo, followed by war. 2. Sectional character of the 
vote for war. Schurz, Clay, i. 83-85 ; McMaster, iii. 444-452, 456- 
458; H. Adams, vi. ch. viii.-xi. ; Hoist, Wnited States, i. 230-240; 
Hunt, ch. xxxi. ; Clay, i. 182-194 ; Schouler, ii. 374-394 ; Hildreth, 
vi. 290-306, 313-325 ; Madison, Letters, ii. 535. 

3. British orders in council withdrawn one day before the Amer- 
ican declaration of war. 4. American refusal to reopen negotia- 
tions. 5. The one object for which the war, finally, was fought. 
Schurz, Clay, i. 87-88; Gay, 319-320; Hildreth, vi. 343-351 ; H. 
Adams, vi. ch. xiii. ; Schouler, ii. 406-409 ; McMaster, iv. 1-8. 

Research. — British views of the occasion of the war. James, 
vi. 112-115. 

201. Opening Disaster. — Hull's Surrender at De- 
troit. — Battle of Queenstown Heights. 1812. 

Topics and References. 

I. Disadvantages of the United States in the war. 2. General 
Hull's expedition and his surrender. 3. Attempt to enter Canada 
at Queenstown. H. Adams, vi. ch. xiv.-xvi. ; McMaster, iii. 541-549, 
556-560; iv. 8-13; Schouler, ii. 394-401 ; Hildreth, vi. 335-343, 
357-359; Clarke (on Hull), ch. ii.-iv. 
Research. — Views of the opponents of the war. Hildreth, vi. 

319-325. 



358 SECOND WAR WITH ENGLAND. 

202. Naval Triumphs. 1812. 

Topics and Referenxes. 

I. Comparison of British and American naWes. 2. The prin- 
cipal sea fights of 1 812. 3. Privateers. Roosevelt, iVaval IVar^ 
ch. ii.-iii. ; H. Adams, \-i. ch. x\ni. ; vii. ch. xiii. ; McMaster, iv. 
70-91: James, vi. 203-218, 115-202: Hildreth, vi. 364-372, 397- 
399; Schouler, ii. 402-406; Hart, Contempts, iii. 414-417. 

203. Second Disaster in the West. 1812. 

Topics and Referenxes. 

I. Naval preparations on the lakes. — Their importance. 2. Har- 
rison's movement to recover Detroit, and its disastrous begin- 
ning. McMaster, iv. 19-30: H. Adams, vii. ch. iv. ; Schouler, ii. 
409-412. 

204. Reelection of President Madison. 1812. 

Topics and References. 

I. The combination against Madison. — His reelection. H. 
Adams, vi. 412-414; McMaster, iv. 191-203; Hildreth, vi. 373- 
377 ; Schouler, ii. 409-412. 

205. Naval Occurrences on Salt and Fresh Water. 

1813. 

Topics and References. 

I. Capture of the Chesapeake by the British frigate Shan- 
non. — Death of Lawrence. 2. Blockade of Atlantic ports, with 
most of the American fleet shut in. 3, Perry's victory on Lake 
Erie. Roosevelt, Naval War, ch. v.-vi. : H. Adams, vii. ch. xi.- 
xii., and 115-127: McMaster, iv. 91-99,30-38; Schouler, ii. 434- 
437, 425-426; James, vi. 275-324: Hildreth, vi. 420-426, 430-431. 
434-437. 

206. Recovery of Detroit and the West. — Futile 
Campaigning on the New York Frontier and the 
St. Lawrence. 1813. 

Topics and References. 

I. Effect of Perry's victory on western military operations. 2. 
Retreat of British from Detroit River. — Pursuit bv Harrison. — 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 359 

Battie of the Thames. — Death of Tecumseh. H. Adams, vii. ch. 
vi. ; Hildreth, vi. 437-438 : McMaster, iv. 3S-41. 

3. Campaign on the New York frontier. — Partial burning of 
York. 4. Defence of Sackett's Harbor. — General Jacob Brown. 
5. Abortive expedition against Montreal. 6. British successes 
and ravages on the Niasjara frontier. H. Adams, vii. ch. vii.-viii. ; 
McMaster. iv. 41-54; Hildreth, vi. 410-41 1, 416-420, 439-445; 
Schouler, ii. 426-430. 

207. The Creek War. 1813. 

Tones AND References. 

I. Rising of the Creeks. 2. General Jackson's campaign against 
them. H. Adams, vii. ch. ix.-x. ; McMaster, iv. 156-173: Hil- 
dreth, vi. 446-450. 477-4S0 : Schouler, ii. 430-434. 

208. Fall of Napoleon and its Effect on the War 

m America. 1814. 

Topics and References. 

I. The alliance which overthrew Napoleon. 2. British forces 
set free for use in America. Seeley, Napoleon^ 143-210 ; Hildreth, 
vi. 490-492. 

209. Last Attempt against Canada. — British Ad- 
vance to Lake Champlain. — Macdonough's Naval 
Victory. 1814. 

Topics and References. 

I. Chippewa. — Lundy's Lane. — Fort Erie. 2. Naval and mili- 
tary victories, at Plattsburg. — Commodore Macdonough. H. 
Adams, viii. ch. ii.-iv. : McMaster, iv. 56-69 ; Hildreth, vi. 4S9, 
492-498,514-517: Schouler, ii. 447-449; Cullum, ch. vi. ; Roose- 
velt, Xaval JJ'ary 375-399. 

210. Raids on the Coast. — Capture and Barbarous 

Treatment of Washington. 1814. 

Topics and References. 

I. Battle of Bladensburg and capture of Washington. 2. Attack 
on Baltimore. — The song of " The Star Spangled Banner.*' 
Roosevelt, iVai/u/ Warj ch. vii. ; H. Adams, viii. ch. v.-vi. ; McMas- 



36o SECOND WAR WITH ENGLAND. 

ter, iv. I2I-1 55 ; Cullum, ch. vii. ; Hildretli, vi. 4S3-4S8. 49t>-5i3, 
519-520 ; Schouler, ii. 449-456. 

211. Disheartening State of the Country. — New 
England Disaffection. — The Hartford Convention. 
1814. 

Topics and References. 

1. The military situation and the financial condition. H.Adams, 
viii. ch. viii.-.\. : Hildreth, vi. 524-529, S56-S57- 

2. Conduct of Federalists in New England. 3. The Hartford 
Convention and its report (text in MacDonald, ii. 198-207). H. 
Adams, viii. ch. i. and xi. : Hoist, United States, i. 240-272 : Mc- 
Master, iv. ch. xxviii. : Johnston, Am. Politics, 78-85 ; Hildreth, 
vi. 465-473, 531-535- 545-554; Hunt, ch. xxxiii. ; Schouler, ii. 458- 
476; Quincy, 356-358 ; Lodge, Cabot, ch. xi.-xiii. 

212. Negotiations at Ghent. — Treaty of Peace. 

1814. 

Topics and References. 

I. Circumstances which brought about the negotiation. 2. 
First demands of the British commissioners. 3. The terms of 
peace agreed upon (text in MacDonald, ii. 192-198 ; Lamed, Ready 
RefX J. O. Adams, ii. ch. viii. ; iii. ch. ix. : Schurz, Clay, 99-125 ; 
Morse, /. Q. Adams, 75-98 ; H. Adams, vii. ch. ii. and xiv. : ix. 
ch. i.-ii. ; McMaster, iv. 256-277; Schouler, ii. 417-419,442-445, 
477-484; Hildreth. vi. 401, 491-492, 52t)-53o. 544, 566-570: Hart, 
Co)iiemp' s. iii. 426-429. 

213. Battle of New Orleans. 1815. 

Topics and References. 

I. Expedition from Jamaica against New Orleans. 2. The un- 
necessary battle and its fearful slaughter. 3. Prestige of Jackson. 
V2iXX.ox\, Jackson, ch. i.-xxiii. ; Cullum, ch. viii.; Roosevelt, A\ival 
War, q\\. X.; H. Adams, viii. ch. xii.-xiv. ; McMaster, iv. 173- 
190 ; Schouler, ii. 485-491 ; Hildreth, vi. 557-565 ; Hart, Contempts, 
iii. 422-425. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 361 

214. War with Algiers. 1815. 

Topics and References. 

I. Renewed trouble with Barbary pirates. 2. Decatur's expe- 
dition and its results. McMaster, iv. 351-356 ; Hildreth, vi. 577- 
578. 

215. Pinal Decay and Dissolution of the Federalist 

Party. 

Topics and References. 

I. Causes of the disappearance of the party. 2. Its doctrines 
not now disputed. 3. Presidential election of 181 6. H. Adams, 
ix. 92-103, 122-124; Johnston, Am. Po////cs, 8^-Sy ; Hildreth, vi. 
594-601 ; Schouler, ii. 512-513 ; Johnston, Am. Orations, i. 99- 

lOI. 

216. Protective Tariff. — United States Bank. — 
Internal Improvements. 1816. 

Topics and References. 

I. Hamiltonian doctrines and measures approved by Jefferso- 
nians. 2. The protective tariff of 1 816 advocated in the south and 
opposed in New England. 3. New United States Bank (text in 
MacDonald, ii. 207-212). 4. Appropriations for internal improve- 
ments vetoed by Madison. Schurz, C/ay, i. 126-138; Burgess, 
Middle Period, i-\i^ 14-18 ; Schouler, ii. 495-499 ; Gordy, ii. 349- 
354» 356-357 ; McMaster, iv. 309-314, 319-340, 410-415 ; H. Adams, 
ix. 105-118, 131-134; Hildreth, vi. 582-592, 617-618; O. L. 
Elliott, 163-194; Hart, Co7ttemp''s, iii. 434-440. 



/ 
/ 



CHAPTER XL 

AMERICAN DEMOCRACY FINDING INDEPENDENCE. 

1813-1828. 

217. The New Spirit in the Country. — The Demo- 
cratic Development. 1815-1828. Thou2:h the causes 
of the War of 18 12 with England were not formally re- 
moved, they disappeared at the close of the war. The 
fall of Napoleon, putting England and France at peace, 
had ended the state of things from which those causes 
came. The same event ended the mischievous influence 
Ettect ^^ American politics which, for almost a quarter 

peace In of a ccntury, had ranged one party on the side 
of England and the other on the side of France. 
It ended, too, the humiliations which the young, un- 
developed republic had been suffering so long at the 
hands of the contending powers in Europe, with serious 
harm to its public spirit and national pride. 

The effects which came to the United States from 
the return of general peace, after Napoleon fell, were 
immediate and very great. A more independent spirit 
— a more unitedly American spirit — arose; the atten- 
tion of the people was given more closely to their home 
affairs ; and because those effects became marked after 
the peace with England, some have ascribed them to the 
war, calling it " our second war of independence." In 
reality, there was a second and completer acquisition of 
American independence at this time, won partly, per- 
haps, by the second war, but it came to us more as a 



DEMOCRACY FINDING INDEPENDENCE. 363 

consequence of the general peace restored to Europe 
and to the world at large. 

The effects of that event were increased by influences 
now acting on the whole country from the young com- 
munities of the west. Only four new States had been 
formed in the Mississippi valley ; but the Territories 
beyond them were filling with population so fast that 
two more were knocking already for admission to the 
Union, and five came in within the next five years. The 
circumstances of pioneer life, simple and wholesome, 
if rude, in all that primitive domain, were developing a 
spirit more purely democratic and more entirely Ameri- 
can than had appeared anywhere before. A really un- 
classed society had never existed in the old States in 
their most primitive days, but it was formed by the con- 
ditions of western settlement (wherever slavery 

Democracy 
did not enter), because land-ownership, in some in the 

^ West. 

degree, was almost universal, wage-working 
rare, and the social footing of all men substantially the 
same. Until new commonwealths began to be formed 
in the interior of the country, quite removed from old 
influences, the political system of the American Union 
had been republican, but not democratic ; for the suf- 
frage in the older States had been given to property 
owners or tax-payers only, and limited in many cases by 
disfranchisement on religious or other grounds. The 
new States, excepting: Tennessee, made every 

Western In- 

adult male citizen a voter, and their demo- nuenceon 

1 1 • 1 1 1 r' tie East. 

cratic example was pushmg the older States, 
one by one, to do the same. Hence the spirit of the 
nation was now beginning to take much of its tone from 
a young, vigorous, untrained, often rough democracy, in 
pioneer communities that were making themselves felt 
more and more. Their influence on the character and 



364 EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

history of the republic during the next generation or 
two is plainly seen. 

218. Steam Navigation. — Road and Canal Build- 
ing. 1807-1825. A new era in the settlement and 
development of the vast interior of the country was 
opening, through the introduction of steam navigation 
on rivers and lakes, the improvement of roads on the 
principal lines of emigration, and the undertaking of the 
most important of all early canals. Fulton's first steam- 
boat, as stated before, be^can her trips on the 

Lake and ^_. . . , 

river Hudson m 1807. The first steamer on western 

steamboat- 

ing, 1807- rivers was launched at Pittsbure: in 181 1, and 

1818. ° ' 

taken to New Orleans. The first on the Great 
Lakes was built at Sackett's Harbor in 1816 ; the first on 
Lake Erie began trips from Buffalo to Detroit in 181 8. 
From that time the new carrier of people and merchan- 
dise came into use very fast, and the movement of both, 
over widening stretches of the country, was quickened 
and increased at an extraordinary rate. 

In 1820 the Cumberland Road, the first and for a 
long time the only work of '* internal improvement " 

taken in hand by the s^eneral sfovernment, was 

Cumber- ^ • , , r ^ ^^ 

land Road, finished from Cumberland, on the Potomac, to 

1808-1820. 

Wheeling, on the Ohio River. Between 181 7 
and 1825 another more important undertaking was 
carried through, with remarkable energy, by the State 
of New York, stimulated by its able governor, DeWitt 

Clinton. This was the buildins: of the Erie 

The Erie * 

Canal, Canal, 364 miles in length, from the Hudson 

1817-1825. , ' -> ^ o ' 

River to Lake Erie, opening travel and trans- 
portation by water from the seaboard to the far western 
extremity of the chain of Great Lakes. The great canal 
became at once the chosen thoroughfare of westward 
emigration, traversed by millions, in an endless proces- 



DEMOCRACY FINDING INDEPENDENCE. 365 

sion to homes in the heart of the continent, and became, 
too, the main channel of traffic between the east and 
the west. The State of New York was populated and 
enriched by the stream of trade and travel, and its sea- 
port, at the mouth of the Hudson, was made the chief 
commercial emporium of the New World. 

219. Literature and Liberal Thought. 1816-1825. 
There are many signs to show that the country was 
moved by fresh impulses, on many lines of its advance, 
in the years that followed the war. They were impulses, 
not generated at the time, but simply set free from the 
distractions and constraints of the troubled period which 
the whole preceding generation had been living through. 
They showed themselves as plainly in a new liberation 
of thought, and of the expression of thought, as in the 
liberated spirit that is mentioned above. The first not- 
able writings in this country that belong to pure litera- 
ture — being, that is, something more than strong reason- 
ing on religious and political topics, or more than clear 
narrative in good English — appeared then, or were 
germinated in young minds, under the influences of that 
time. It was in 181 7 that Bryant's "Thanatopsis " was 
published in the " North American Review," then pass- 
ing through its second year. It was in 18 19 
that the classic "Sketch Book " of Irving was vii^cooper, 

1817-1821 

put in print. It was in 1820 that Cooper gave 
his first novel to the world, and he followed it the next 
year with **The Spy." Before these there had been no- 
thing of their kind that holds a living place in American 
literature ; but what a harvesting there was in Emerson 
the next score or two of years, from minds Long-^°'^^^' 
that were ripened in the schools and colleges wiittier 
of that time ! From Emerson, born in 1803, ■^°^®^" 
Hawthorne, born in 1804, Longfellow and Whittier in 



366 EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

1807, Dr. Holmes in 1809 ! It was the dawn of what, 
thus far in the history of American literature, has been 
its golden age. 

Quite as striking is the movement of change in reli- 
gious thought and feeling that became manifest in those 
quiet years, beginnins: in the circle which has 

"Liberal ^ -^ ' & & 

ciirisuan- Boston for its centre and thence widening: out. 
Ity." ^ 

The harsh and bitter beliefs of early Puritanism 

had been losing their hold upon the Congregational 
churches of New England for many years ; but the de- 
cisive break from them came within the period now 
spoken of, when the powerful influence of William Ellery 
Channing began to have a wide range. 

220. The Political ** Era of Good Feelings." 1817- 
1824. The state of political quietude at this time was 
the most remarkable that the country has ever known ; 
for the intense passions of the past score of years, ex- 
cited by circumstances growing out of the conflict in 
Europe, subsided quickly after the removal of their cause, 
and a profound reaction ensued. As the old Federalist 
party fell to pieces, it left, for the time being, only one 
coherent party in existence, which was the party in 
power. All the original political issues that divided 
people into parties at the outset were in full force still, 
and were working out the same divisions of opinion and 
the same conflicts of interest as before ; but it took time 
to reorganize them in party forms. Meanwhile a singu- 
lar appearance of political peace was produced, which 
caused the years of the administration of President 
Monroe to be called '' The Era of Good Feelings." ^ 

^ Mr. Schouler, in his History of the United States^ states that 
the earliest use he has found of this phrase is in the heading of a 
Boston newspaper article, July 12, 181 7, during a visit of the Presi- 
dent to New England. He refers, also, to a statement in Niles's 



DEMOCRACY FINDING INDEPENDENCE. 367 

221. Bank Inflation and the '« Crisis " of 1819. 1811- 
1821. At first, the political ** good feeling " of this era 
coincided with a quite general state of satisfaction, pro- 
duced by apparently "good times." Manufactures were 
suffering, notwithstanding the raised tariff, and shipping 
interests were depressed, but the great inflow of com- 
modities from abroad was yielding a rich revenue to the 
government and giving activity to trade, while Europe 
was buying largely of American breadstuffs for a time. 
The appearance of prosperity was heightened by an in- 
flation of banking and bank paper-currency, which had 
its beginning when the first bank of the United States 
was dissolved, in 181 1 (see sect. 197). A mischiev- 
ous multitude of banks, of the species called "•y^iia. 
" wild-cat " at a later time, sprang into exist- J|nks, 
ence then, under state laws loosely framed, isn-isi^- 
which subjected them to little regulation or restraint. 
These banks issued notes in reckless quantities, based 
on no sound security, and made equally reckless loans 
of them, spreading a credit system that had nothing 
substantial to rest upon, on either the lender's or the 
borrower's side. The second Bank of the United States 
was chartered in i8i6with the hope that it would check 
the mischief, and be, as the first Bank had been, a strong 
regulator of banking and monetary operations ; but 
its early management made matters worse. In 181 8 a 
new management in the Bank of the United The second 
States found its affairs in such a state that gtatw^ 
sharp measures, reducing loans and collecting ^^^' 
debts, were needed to save it from failure ; and that ac- 
tion broke the bubble of fictitious credit and speculative 
trade. The break came in 18 19, and there was much 

Register oi ]\i\y 12, 1823, that Boston gave that name to the " aera " 
when the President was there. 



368 EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

depression and distress for the next two years, except 
in Massachusetts, where the banks and currency had been 
kept in a generally sound state. 

222. Supreme Court Decisions. 1819-1824. At 
this time, and within the next few years, the Supreme 
Court of the United States, under the lead of Chief Jus- 
tice Marshall, found opportunity, in a number of cases 
that came before it, to pronounce a series of vitally im- 
portant decisions, establishing its own authority as the 
final tribunal on questions of constitutional law ; broadly 
construing and enforcing the clause of the Constitution 
which forbids the States to impair the obligations of 
contracts, and sustaining Hamilton's doctrine of "im- 
plied powers." Excepting Marshall and one other, the 
justices of the Supreme Court when these decisions were 
rendered (1819-24) had been appointed by Presidents 
Jefferson and Madison ; but the effect of their decisions 
was to establish the sovereign nationality of the federal 
government which Jefferson and Madison had feared. 

223. The First Seminole "War. — General Jackson's 
Proceedings. 1817-1818. The most disturbing polit- 
ical event in the early part of the Monroe administra- 
tion was the first of two wars with the Seminole Indians 
of Florida. In 181 7 General Jackson w^as put in com- 
mand of forces sent against those Indians, who lived 
in Spanish territory, but who had been in collision with 
the Georgians on frequent occasions, for many years. 

Jackson proposed to make the war one of con- 
conquest oi qucst, for the overthrow of the weak Spanish 

Florida. , . . -^, . . , , , ^ - ■, 

authority in Honda, and he always claimed 
that the government had given him reason to suppose 
that it approved his plans. There was fierce disputing 
on the subject for years. 

At all events, Jackson, in a campaign of five months, 



DEMOCRACY FINDING INDEPENDENCE. 369 

not only subdued the Seminoles, but took substantial 
possession of Florida, capturing St. Mark's and Pcnsa- 
cola, turning out the Spanish garrisons, and putting 
American forces in their place. More than that, in 
violation of all principles of international law, to say 
nothing of justice, he hanged two British subjects — a 
Scotch trader, Arbuthnot, and an Englishman Arbuthnot 
named Ambrister — whom he believed to have Sn^ji-ister 
aided the Seminoles, though evidence that ■'■^•'■*- 
they did so was slight. His lawless conduct was both 
shameful and embarrassing to the country ; and yet his 
popularity, consequent on the victory at New Orleans, 
was so great that the government did not dare to re- 
buke him, or disclaim responsibility for what he had 
done. It had to deal with the offended governments 
of England and Spain as best it could. 

224. Purchase of East Florida. — Spanish Bound- 
aries defined. 1819.^ The outcome was fortunate, par- 
ticularly on the Spanish side of the matter ; for Spain 
became convinced that her Florida territory would be 
always insecure. She consented, therefore, to give it 
up to the United States, as an offset to American claims 
for spoliations in the past wars, amounting to about 
$5,000,000 as a whole. The treaty of cession signed 
in February, 18 19, was made doubly important by de- 
fining boundaries in the west between the possessions 
of the United States and Spain. The line defined ran 
by the Sabine, the Red, and the Arkansas rivers (with 
meridian lines between them), up to the 42d degree of 
north latitude, which parallel it followed to the Pacific 
coast. AH claim to territory north of the 42d degree 
was renounced by Spain. 

225. Coi^vention with Great Britain. — The Oregon 

1 See Map XV. 



370 EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

Country. — Fisheries. 1818. This last provision of 
the Florida treaty gave important support to conten- 
tions of the United States with Great Britain over the 
region on the Pacific called Oregon, in the basin of 
the Columbia River. American claims to that region 
were founded on the fact that, while Spanish and Eng- 
lish voyagers had skirted the coast in earlier times, 
an American ship was the first (in 1792) to enter the 
Columbia ; that the first exploration of the 

Early .' , . ^ . 

claims to country from the mountains to the sea was 

Oregon. 

made by Lewis and Clarke in 1804-05 (see 
sect. 185) ; and that the trading settlement of Astoria 
was founded by John Jacob Astor's fur company in 
181 1. Since 1813, however, the British had been in 
actual possession of the country, and were not easily to 
be driven out. Four months prior to the Florida treaty 
with Spain (in October, 18 18), a convention with Great 
Britain established the 49th degree of north latitude as 
the northern boundary of the United States from the 
Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains, and pro- 
jointoocu- "^'ided that the country west of the mountains 
Oregon^ should be held jointly by the two nations for 
^^^®- ten years. As a matter of fact, the Oregon 

boundary question remained unsettled for twenty-eight 
years, instead of ten. 

The fisheries question, postponed in the negotiations 
at Ghent, was settled by this convention of 1818. 
Fisheries Within certain limits, it restored to American 
question. fishermen the privileges they had formerly en- 
joyed on the eastern coasts of British America, which 
were held to be annulled by the War of 181 2. On the 
remaining coasts they were to do no fishing within 
three miles of the shore. ^ 

226. The Question of Slavery Extension. 1816- 



DEMOCRACY FINDING INDEPENDENCE. 3/1 

1821. In settling our western boundary with Spain, 

there would have been, probably, an effort to push it 

beyond the Sabine and take in the Texas country to 

the Rio Grande, if a startling excitement of sectional 

feeling on the slavery question had not been rising at 

the time, in connection with the admission of new 

States. At the end of the first year of the Monroe 

administration there were twenty States in the Union, 

Indiana and Mississippi having been admitted 

r.x--ir. T 1 1 1 r r Indiana 

m 1 8 ID and i8i7. In exactly one half of and 

-^ Mississippi 

them — all north of Mason and Dixon's line admitted, 

1816-1817. 

and the Ohio River — slavery had been or 
was being extinguished by measures of gradual emanci- 
pation ; while in the other half the prospects of its ex- 
tinction were growing less. This gave the slave labor 
and the free labor interests an even representation in 
the United States Senate ; but in the other House of 
Congress the slaveholding States were losing 
ground at a rapid rate, despite the represen- ing states 
tation they had secured for three fifths of power in 

^1-1 ^T-1 r 1 House. 

their slaves. Ihe greater streams or popula- 
tion flowing into the empty spaces of the continent 
were moving, and would move, toward the regions in 
which labor was free. These facts had become alarm- 
ing to the slaveholding interest, and it saw no mode of 
holding power in the Union except that of offsetting 
numbers in States against numbers in people, to keep 
itself strong in the Senate, against the House. 

By a tacit agreement, the balance established in 1817 
was maintained in the next formation of States, — Illi- 
nois in 18 18 and Alabama in the succeeding mijiois 
year. But then arose the question of dealing i^aiiama, 
with the vast territory of the Louisiana Pur- 18I8-1819. 
chase, which came to us with slavery sanctioned by its 



372 EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

Spanish and French laws, and which, thus far, had 
stood open to the slaveholder and his slaves. One 
slaveholding State, Louisiana, had been carved already 
from that territory, and a slaveholding population was 
spreading up its streams and over its inviting lands. 

227. The Missouri Compromise. 1820-1821.^ The 
question came seriously into Congress in February, 1819, 
when a bill to authorize the people of Missouri to form 
a state government was taken up for discussion in the 
House of Representatives, and Mr. Tallmadge, a New 

York member, moved to amend it by a provi- 
madge's sion that " the further introduction of slavery 
Sent, ' or involuntary servitude be prohibited," and 

'' that all children of slaves born within the said 
State after the admission thereof into the Union shall 
be free." This opened a passionate debate, and the 
whole country was shaken by the excitement produced. 
Threats from the south of a dissolution of the Union 
and civil war were answered by declarations from the 
north that the spreading of slavery was more dreadful 
than disunion or war. The discussion resulted in the 
adoption of Mr. Tallmadge's amendment in the House, 
while the Senate threw it out. The session being then 
near its close, the bill was dropped ; but a vehement 
agitation of the subject, in all parts of the country, 
went on. 

When Congress met again, in December, 18 19, it re- 
ceived an application from the people of Maine to be 

separated from Massachusetts and allowed to 
S^Maine,**^ f orm a state government of their own. The Sen- 
^*^^' ate coupled this with the application from Mis- 

souri, and efforts were made to bring about the admis- 
sion of the two States together, one with slavery and 

1 See Map XIV. 



DEMOCRACY FINDING INDEPENDENCE. 3/3 

one without. The House refused, and the two branches 
of Congress were at a dead-lock for some weeks. Finally 
a compromise, famous in American history as " The 
Missouri Compromise," was arranged. Mis- The Mis- 
souri was to be admitted with no restriction ; |?JJ}iseT" 
but in all the remainder of the territory bought ^^^^' 
from France "which lies north of 36° 30' north lati- 
tude " (that being the southern boundary line of Mis- 
souri), slavery was to be prohibited forever. 

T- , 1 r 1 TT Maine 

rourteen northern members 01 the House were admitted, 

n 1 • . 1 r 1 1 ■ . 1820. 

persuaded to jom those of the south m passing 
this compromise act, Maine being admitted to state- 
hood at the same time (March 3, 1820). 

But the Missouri question was not ended ; for when, 
at the next session of Congress, the people of the ap- 
plicant Territory submitted the constitution they had 
framed, it was found to contain a provision that free 
colored people should not come within its bounds. This 
violated the provision of the Federal Constitution that 
" the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the 
privileges and immunities of citizens in the several 
States," inasmuch as colored people had been admitted 
to citizenship in some of the northern States. A new 
excitement in Cono^ress and in the country was 

The 

produced. Both south and north there was a auestion 

reopened. 

growing dislike of the compromise, and a strong 
disposition to throw it aside. It was objectionable to 
one party because it conceded to Congress the power 
to interfere with slavery in the Territories ; and to the 
other party because it permitted even a limited exten- 
sion of slavery to new States. After weeks of debate 
there appeared to be no hope of a peaceful agreement, 
and the slaveholding States seemed prepared to break 
from the Union and fight for the territory in dispute. 



374 EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

But that conflict of feeling was overcome at last by the 
exertions and the extraordinary influence of Henry 
Clay. Mr. Clay succeeded, on the 28th of February, 
1 82 1, in carrying a joint resolution through the House 

by the narrow majority of 86 against 82, 
the 'final which admitted Missouri to the Union on the 

** fundamental condition" that the objection- 
able clause in its constitution should never be con- 
strued to authorize the passage of any law excluding any 
citizen of another State from the privileges and immu- 
nities to which he is entitled under the Constitution 
of the United States. The Senate concurred ; Missouri 
agreed to the condition, and the President, in due time, 
proclaimed the admission of the new State. 

Again, as in the framing of the Federal Constitution, 
the irreconcilable antagonisms between a society based 

on slave labor and one founded on the institu- 
mentofthe tions of freedom had been stifled temporarily 

"irrecon- . . ttt, , • ^ 

enable by compromise. Whether or not it was best 

conllict." -^ 

for the country that this should be done, and 
done again, to defer an inevitable conflict, is a question 
that has had much debate. The longer the postpone- 
ment, the more terrible the conflict at last ; but if it had 
come too early to be decisive, there would have been, 
perhaps, only a beginning of long-lasting and ruinous 
hostilities between disunited States. 

228. Unanimous Reelection of President Monroe. 
1820. In 1820 the P'ederalist party had disappeared as 
a national organization, and no other had taken its place. 
Factions in state pohtics were numerous, and the sec- 
tional issue upon slavery had become deeply marked ; 
but there was nothing that could be rallied as an oppo- 
sition to the reelection of President Monroe. No candi- 
date was brought forward against him, and he enjoys 



DEMOCRACY FINDING INDEPENDENCE. 375 

the distinction of being the only President save Wash- 
ington to whom the office was given with unanimity. A 
single elector, in New Hampshire, cast his vote for John 
Quincy Adams, merely, as he said, to preserve Wash, 
ington's distinction ; but the unanimity of Monroe's 
election was broken only in appearance by that vote. 

229. International Improvenients and Protective 
Tariffs. 1822-1824. The existing political situation, 
with but one party having a national footing in the 
country, could not last long. The old fundamental ques- 
tions, inherent in the Federal system and its Constitu- 
tion, were sure to be raised as party issues again. Such 
a question was that relating to internal im- 

1 . . , 1 , . Monroe's 

provements, now begmnmg to be made urgent attitude on 

... , . internal 

by the spread or mterior settlement, mcreas- improve- 
ing the need of improved means of travel and 
traffic. President Monroe was in agreement with Jeffer- 
son and Madison on this question, arguing against the 
power of Congress to undertake roads and canals with- 
out an amendment of the Constitution ; but the issue 
was not yet distinctly formed. 

Another rising question, on which parties were cer- 
tain to come to a more definite division soon, was that 
touching the "protection" of home industries by high 
tariff rates. The protective tariff of i8i6 had not sat- 
isfied the manufacturers for whom it was framed, and 
attempts to raise the scale of duties were made in every 
Congress from 1820 till 1824, when they ob- Tariff oi 
tained success. The bill then passed not only •'■^^*" 
raised the barrier against foreign products of the spin- 
dle and loom, the furnace and the forge, by increased 
duties, but it protected wool-raising in Ohio, hemp-grow- 
ing in Kentucky, lead-mining in Illinois and Missouri, 
and other industries in other States, and so made up the 



3/6 EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

small majorities in the two Houses by which it was 
passed. The ''navigating and fishing States," Massa- 
chusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine, together with the 
cotton, tobacco, and sugar-planting States, cast their 
votes almost solidly against the bill. Clay was the fore- 
most champion of what he named "The American 
System " of national policy, as he had been the chief 
advocate of a national policy of internal improvements, 
and it was not difficult to foresee that he would be in 
the lead of a distinct party formed on those lines. 
Attitude Webster, contending for the shipping inter- 
aid Web- ^^^S' which his State still valued more highly 
^^"- than its factories, appeared again, as in iSi6, 

the weightiest opponent of the protective scheme. 

230. The "Monroe Doctrine." 1823. It was Presi- 
dent ]\Ionroe's fortune to associate his name with a 
principle of American policy which the people of all 
parties have accepted, and which has commanded so 
much attention and discussion in other countries that 
it is famously known. In 1823 the Spanish-American 
provinces (except those of the West Indies) had all 
acquired substantial independence, and the United 
States had recognized their independence in the pre- 
vious year. In Spain itself a revolution had occurred 
in 1820, which the Bourbon government of France 
(restored after the fall of Napoleon) had sent an army 
to suppress. In doing this, the king of France acted 
"The Holy ^^^ '^ league of European sovereigns, calling 
Aiuance." -^-ggif .. ^j^g Holy Alliance," the real object of 
whose members was to lend assistance to one another 
against popular revolts. It was understood that this 
so-called Holy Alliance, after making misgoverned 
people in Europe submissive to their yokes, intended 
to take Spanish America in hand, and its proceed- 



DEMOCRACY FINDING INDEPENDENCE. 377 

ings were watched with anxiety and indignation by 
Kniiland as well as the United States. Mr. 

r-^ • . . -, i- Canning's 

Canning, then British Secretary for Foreign suggestion, 
Affairs, suggested in August, 1823, that Great 
Britain and the United States act together in opposing 
the trans-Atlantic projects of the dangerous league. No 
arrangement for that purpose was made ; but when, in 
December, the President prepared his message, it was 
decided in his cabinet that he should state plainly the 
determination of the United States to oppose European 
meddling with American affairs. It has been claimed, 
with probable truth, that John Ouincy Adams, Mr. 
Monroe's Secretary of State, was the author president 
in substance of the declaration as it appeared SJeSage* 
in the President's message ; but virtually the ^^^^' 
same doctrine of American policy had been set forth 
by others more than once. The official statement of it 
by President Monroe gave the principle an importance 
which it has kept, for the reason that it expressed the 
mind of the nation, then and since. The language that 
embodied the so-called ** Monroe Doctrine" appears in 
two parts of the message. First, in allusion to Russian 
claims and movements on the Pacific coast, it was said : 
'*The occasion has been judged proper for asserting, as 
a principle • in which the rights and interests of the 
United States are involved, that the American conti- 
nents, by the free and independent condition which they 
have assumed and maintained, are henceforth not to be 
considered as subjects for future colonization by any 
European powers." With reference to the supposed 
intentions of the powers of the Holy Alliance, the 
language used was, in part, as follows : '* In the wars of 
European powers, in matters relating to themselves, we 
have never taken any part, nor does it comport with our 



378 EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

policy so to do. It is only when our rights are invaded 
or seriously menaced that we resent injuries or 

statement , • r i r \tit 

of the make preparations tor our detence. . . . We 

Doctrine. . , . ^ i ^ ^i 

owe It, therefore, to candor and to the ami- 
cable relations existing between the United States and 
those powers, to declare that we should consider any 
attempt on their part to extend their [political] system 
to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our 
peace and safety. With the existing colonies of any 
European power we have not interfered, and shall not 
interfere, but with the governments who have declared 
their independence and maintained it, and whose inde- 
pendence we have on great consideration and just prin- 
ciples acknowledged, we could not view any interposi- 
tion for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling 
in any other manner their destiny, by any European 
power, in any other light than as a manifestation of an 
unfriendly disposition toward the United States." 

Frequent attempts are made to give a broader mean- 
ing to this statement of policy than it can reasonably 
bear ; as though the United States undertook to stand 
between other American states and the powers of the 
Old World in all matters. It means no such thing. 
Meaning ^he purposc expressed and the objects aimed 
M^roe ^t ^^^ plain, namely : (i) that ambitious powers 
Doctrine. jj^ Europe shall neither make conquests in this 
hemisphere, nor overturn existing governments, nor 
extend their own political system to it, if the United 
States can prevent ; and (2) that the American conti- 
nents are no longer to be looked upon as open fields for 
new colonies under European control. 

231. Visit of Lafayette. 1824-1825. In the last 
year of Mr. Monroe's administration as President the 
country was delighted by a visit from Lafayette. Wei- 



DEMOCRACY FINDING INDEPENDENCE. 379 

corned and entertained as a guest of the nation, the 
noble Frenchman received everywhere, during a stay of 
thirteen months, every attention that could be devised 
for showing the affection of a grateful people. The 
nation gave itself up to a more joyous excitement of 
patriotic emotions than it had ever experienced before, 
and the " Era of Good Feelings " was brought to a happy 
close. 

232. Presidential Election of 1824-1825. — Its De- 
terraination in the House of Representatives. — '• Bar- 
gain and Corruption " charged by the Jackson men. 
Attention was so centred upon Lafayette in the fall of 
1824 that the presidential election passed with little 
stir. Nothing was at issue except qu'estions of personal 
choice between several candidates, all of whom professed 
the same political principles and were stamped with the 
same party name. The Democratic-Republican organ- 
ization was still alone in the field, but able no longer to 
concentrate its votes. Party conventions for that pur- 
pose were not yet in use. Hitherto it had sufficed for 
the congressmen of a party to meet in caucus and name 
a candidate ; but submissiveness to that kind of nom- 
ination had now come to an end. General Jackson had 
been proposed for President by the legislature of Ten- 
nessee, and certain shrewd politicians, who foresaw 
that masses of people would vote blindly for the " hero 
of New Orleans," were working in his interest with con- 
summate skill. Other States had offered other favorite 
public men ; but finally the list of candidates was re- 
duced to four, namely, Mr. Crawford, the Secretary of 
the Treasury, General Jackson, John Quincy crawiord, 
Adams, and Henry Clay. If the old feeling Adams'' 
in the country, which held its highest office ciay, i824. 
in reserve for the most eminently fitted men, had still 



3So EXPANSION IX THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

prevailed, either Adams or Clay would have received 
the major vote. No other statesman of his day was 
the peer of John Ouincy Adams in solid attributes of 
character and mind ; but his virtues and talents were 
adorned with no graces, and he took no care to make 
himself pleasing to the public which he faithfully served. 
Clay, on the other hand, surpassed most men in capti- 
vating gifts ; but he was too impulsive, too ardent in 
his opinions, too honestly outspoken, to avoid making 
enemies who influenced great numbers of votes. 

Jackson received 99 electoral votes, Adams 84, Craw- 
ford 41, Clay ^^j, — which gave a majority to none. For 
Vice-President a large majority of votes was cast for Cal- 
houn. The choice of President was now to be made by 
the House of Representatives, from the three candidates 
Theeiec- Standing highest in the list of electoral votes, 
toraivote. Y{-^^ Clay been one of the three, it is nearly 
certain that he would have had the suffragfes of the 
House. As it was, his influence determined the elec- 
tion, and Adams may be said to have received the presi- 
dency at his hands. Broken health had put Crawford 
really out of the question, and Jackson had given no 
evidence of being qualified for the great trust of the 
government of the United States. Of the three to be 
chosen from, Adams was the eminently fit man, and there 
is no reason to suppose that Clay had ever a moment's 
doubt as to what he should do ; but the instant his 
preference was announced, the supporters of Jackson 
declared that he had bargained with Adams to be made 
Secretary of State. They had guessed shrewdly that 
Adams would invite Clay to take the State Department 
and that Clay would accept. It was the natural selection 
for the President to make. 

Adams and Clay did what the plotters expected them 



DEMOCRACY FINDING INDEPENDENCE. 381 

to do, and it is one of the shameful facts in American 
history that they suffered seriously from the ceaseless 
cry of "bargain and corruption " then raised. In large 
parts of the country the public mind was poisoned 
by it; multitudes of people were persuaded by The"bar- 
the mere persistence of the unsupported charge corruption" 
that a great fraud had been committed, which *^^' •^®^^- 
the next election must set right. The whole point 
of the invented story was in that next election, for 
which the conspirators were preparing a long campaign. 
Probably no one was more deluded by them than Jack- 
son himself. He sincerely believed the story of fraud, 
and considered the people of the United States, as well 
as himself, to have been intolerably wronged. It was 
in his nature to arrive at such a conviction without 
proof. At the bottom of that singular nature there was 
a very sturdy honesty ; but it went with a bigoted mind. 
233. Jackson Combination against the Adams Ad- 
ministration. — " State Rights " Reaction in the South. 
1825-1829. The cries of ''bargain and corruption," 
" the presidency sold," " the people cheated of their 
choice," were only preludes to the scheme of the Jack- 
son campaign. Its managers planned to obstruct, 
cripple, and discredit the administration of President 
Adams in all possible ways. They were helped by the 
very uprightness and high-minded dignity of the Presi- 
dent, who would stoop to no contest with them on 
their lower ground. They were helped in another way 
still more ; for a radical " state rights " movement, then 
being revived in southern politics, went into alliance 
with them and gave them a large part of their strength. 
The Missouri struggle had awakened the slaveholding 
interest to a perception of the fact that there could be 
no safety for slavery except in narrow constructions of 



332 EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

the Constitution, closely limiting the powers of the gen- 
eral £:ovemment and establishing: the broadest 
stmts possible ** State rights. Southern public men 

began to regret the encouragement that 
some of them had given to f)olicies of internal improve- 
ment and industrial protection, and profound reactions 
of opinion on those matters were taking place. The 
slaveholding States produced little that could be bene- 
fited by protective duties except hemp. Their slave 
labor could never be applied to anv kind of 
southern manuiactunng With success. Their exports of 
import cotton and tobacco paid for the lars^est part 

duties. ^ . . . ^ . .-.* ^ ^ 

01 the national importation of foreign goods, 
and southern economists were claiming that most of 
the duties collected on imports came, therefore, out of 
the pockets of southern exporters in the end. It was 
a wild theory, but became a general belief. Southern 
public men like Calhoun, who had advocated protective 
duties, internal improvements, and the broader claims 
of national sovereignty, at the outset of their careers, 
now changed their views. 

234. The New Construction of Political Parties. 
1825-1829. All this southern reaction toward the 
extremest ma£:nifvin£: of " state ri^rhts " was drawn 
into the Jackson movement, and was used by its skil- 
ful managers with great success in working up a combi- 
nation against the government, which reallv broke the 
latter down. The inevitable construction of new parties 
was thus brought about. On one side, the protection- 
ists, the advocates of road and canal building as national 
National works. and those, generally, who adhered to 
R^biican Federalistic views of the Constitution, and of 
^^^^- the powers it gave to the genoi-al government, 

remained in support of the administration, and took the 



DEMOCRACY FINDING INDEPENDENCE. 383 

name of National Republicans. The opposition pre- 
ferred to be known as the Democratic party, though it 
kept the old Jeffersonian title of Democratic-Republican, 
for formal use. 

235. Deaths of Jefferson and Adams. July 4, 1826. 
Jefferson lived just long enough to witness this recon- 
struction of his party in a more democratic character 
than it had at first ; and John Adams lived to see his 
son in the presidency, gathering, under a changed name, 
and partly from changed sources, a new party, which was, 
in reality, the Federalist party revived, though it denied 
that descent. By a remarkable and most impressive 
coincidence, both Adams and Jefferson died on the 4th 
of July, 1826, being the fiftieth anniversary of the day 
on which they set their names to the great Declaration. 

236. The Panama Congress. — Georgia and its In- 
dian Tribes. 1825-1827. Of details in the history of 
the four years of the administration of President Adams 
there is little that needs to be told here. It is the his- 
tory of a government that was hampered and bafifled by 
malicious opposition from beginning to end. The not- 
able incident of its first year was an invitation to join the 
Spanish-American republics in a congress to be held at 
Panama, for consideration of corpmon interests among 
the nations of the New World. The government de- 
sired to be represented in the Congress, for the purpose 
of cultivating friendly relations with neighbors who had 
modelled their independent governments on our own, 
being careful at the same time to avoid entanglement 
in their politics, or responsibility for their acts. But 
opposition in Congress delayed action so long that the 
Panama meeting took place with no delegate in attend- 
ance from the United States. 

In a much graver matter the government was crip- 



384 EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

pled by congressional opposition, being deprived of 
power to fulfil its treaty obligations to the Creek and 
Cherokee Indians of Georgia, in protecting them from 
aggressive and oppressive acts by that State. The Presi- 
dent was permitted to do nothing to uphold the national 
authority against a defiant State. 

237. '* The Tariff of Abominations," 1828. In the 
last year of this ill-treated administration, a new tariff 
bill was passed, with grave future effects. The tariff 
of 1824 had not satisfied the manufacturers, and, to 
maintain themselves at the north, the Jackson men 
were forced to take part with the National Republicans 

in amendine: the law. They are said to have 

Tarlfl 

scheming Schemed to construct a bill so disadvantageous 
son's sup- to New England, by reason of high duties on 
wool and other raw materials, that the New 
England representatives would join those of the south 
in defeating it, and so take the odium of the defeat on 
themselves. But the New Englanders chose to vote 
for the objectionable bill, and it became a law, to the 
great indignation of the south. By this time Massa- 
chusetts had become a protectionist State, her manufac- 
tures having grown to more importance than 
andcai- her shipping interests, and, just as Calhoun 

houn , ... - , . . ,. 

change changed his ground on the question in one direc- 

grounds. 

tion, so did Webster in the other. The latter 
contended that his constituents had been forced to 
accept the protective system as a national policy, and, 
having conformed their industries to it, they must now 
demand to have it fully carried out. The "tariff of 
abominations," as it was called, assumed a startling 
importance in the politics of the next few years. 

238. Presidential Election of 1828. — The Jackson 
Triumph. The election canvass of 1828 surpassed all 



DEMOCRACY FINDING INDEPENDENCE. 385 

that had gone before in the recklessness of slander and 
abuse with which it was carried on. President Adams 
was named for reelection by the National Republicans, 
with Richard Rush, of Pennsylvania, for Vice-President, 
and Jackson and Calhoun were the Democratic nomi- 
nees. There appears to have been small doubt of the 
result from the first. Adams carried New England, 
except one electoral vote in ]\Iaine, and he had the 
electoral vote of New Jersey and Delaware, with part of 
the votes of Maryland and New York, — 83 in all. 
Jackson had the rest (178), including the whole jacksoa's 
country west of the mountains and south of ^°^®- 
the Potomac and Ohio, along with the greater part of 
the middle Atlantic States. 

In all but two States, South Carolina and Delaware, 
the presidential electors were now chosen by direct vote 
of the people, instead of being appointed by state legis- 
latures, as was the commoner early mode. In some 
States the election was by districts, which caused a 
division of electoral votes, as in New York. Party 
politics in that State have always been complicated, 
and the situation in 1828 was more than usually strange. 
Two years previously, at Batavia, in western New York, 
a man named Morgan, who had written a pamphlet 
purporting to be a disclosure of the secrets of the order 
of Free Masons, was mysteriously abducted by masked 
men, and never seen again in life. A body found soon 
afterward in the Niagara River was declared by many 
persons to be his, and the charge that he had been mur- 
dered by Masons caused fierce excitement in the State. 
The feeling ran into politics, and a new party, 
of Anti-Masons, hostile to all secret societies, Masonry, 

• ^^ ^ • i l- 11 1826-1828. 

and especially bitter against public men belong- 
ing to the Masonic order, was formed. The previous 



3S6 EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

political factions in New York, known as " Clintonians " 
and *' Bucktails," were disorganized by this new move- 
ment, which divided both. The Clintonians were 
followers of DeWitt Clinton ; his opponents, the Buck- 
tails, took their name from an ornament worn upon 
occasions by members of the Tammany Society, of the 
city of Xew York, which had become an organization 
of great political power.^ Apparently, opposition to 
Jackson would have been weak in New York State if 
anti-Masonr}' had not disturbed the Democratic vote ; 
but the fact that General Jackson was a Mason and 
that Adams was not gave i6 electoral votes to the 
latter out of 36. 

TOPICS AND SUGGESTED READING AND RESEARCH. 

217. The New Spirit in the Country. 

Topics and References. 

I. Effect of the pacification of Europe on the L'nited States. 
2. Why a more independent and more American spirit arose after 
the War of 1S12. Hart, FonnatioM, 221 : Schurz, CJaw i. 120-122. 

3. The new influences that came from the west. Roosevelt, 77;<r 
Manning, iv. 223-257; Sumner, ya^itov//, 136-137; Tocqueville, i. 
64-65. 

218. Steam Navigation. — Road and Canal Building. 

Topics and References. 

I. Beginnings of steamboating on rivers and lakes, a. The 
Cumberland road. 3. Construction of the Erie Canal. McMaster, 
iv. 397-410. 415-421. V. 132-130 ; Hart, FormattoH, 22'-22g. 

Rese.\rch. — The settlement of the west as controlled or influenced 

^ The •* Tammany Society or Columbian Order," organized in 
i7Sa was purely patriotic and non-partisan in the beginning; but 
came under the control of politic;il man.igers who made it lin.olly 
the central organization of the Dcmoci"atic party in the city of 
New York. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 387 

by the course of navigable streams and by improvements in the 
means of transportation and travel. E. Hough, in Century 
Mdgasitu\ xli. gi, 201. 

219. Literature and Liberal Thought. 
Topics and References. 

I. Beginnings of pure Hteraturc. 2. Change in religious thought. 
Hart, Formation^ 224; Hart, Contempts, iii. 512-514; Richardson, 
i. 25S-260, 2S7-292 ; Schouler, iii. 222-224. 

220. The Political " Era of Good Feelings." 

Topics and References. 

I. Causes of a singular state of political quietude. 2. "The 
Era of Good Feelings." Schouler, iii. 3-12 ; Sargent, i. 20-21. 

221. Bank Inflation and the "Crisis" of 1819. 

Topics and References. 

1. Business conditions at the beginning of the period. Taussig, 
19-22; Schouler, iii. 37-40. 

2. Intiation of banking and bank currency. — How caused. — 
" Wild-cat " banks. 3. Iniiuence of second Bank of the United 
States. Syimntv, Jtu-kson, 75-76, 120-135; McMaster, iv. 2S0-31S, 
4S4-510; Gordy, ii. ch. xxv.-xxvi.; Schouler, iii. 109-121; Hildreth, 
vi. 679-6S2; Hart. ConUmp's, iii. 441-445. 

222. Supreme Court Decisions. 

Topics and References. 

I. Bearing and effect of important decisions rendered in this 
period. Hart, Formiif:ofi, 234-230 ; Hart, CoriUmp's, iii. 446-450; 
Sumner y /acJtso /I, 1 28- 130; Lodge, Jl'ebster, ch. iii. 

223. First Seminole "War. — General Jackson's 
Proceedings. 

Topics and References. 

I. General Jackson's practical conquest of Florida. 2. Exe- 
cution of Arbuihnot and Ambrister. 3. Embarrassing position 
of the government. Sumner, Jackson^ 52-67; Schurz, Cltiy, i. 
1 51-159; Mc Master, iv. 430-456 ; Burgess, Middle Period^ 24-36; 
Gordy, ii. 372-3S7; Schouler, iii. 57-95; Hildreth, vi. 605-606, 
627-62S, 640-646, 654-65S ; Clay, v. 179-204. 



SS8 DEiMOCRACY FINDING INDEPENDENCE. 

224. Purchase of East Florida. — Spanish Bound- 
aries defined. 

Topics and References. 

I. Treaty with Spain (text in MacDonald, ii. 213-219). 2. Price 
paid for Florida. 3. Lines of western boundary. Benton, i. ch. 
XV.; Burgess, Middle Period, 20-24, 33, 36-38 ; McMaster, iv. 474- 
483 ; Gordy, ii. 359-360, 363-364, 382-383, 388-389 ; Schouler, iii. 
95-96, 130-133, 175-176, 189; Hildreth, vi. 646-647, 658-659, 712; 
Schurz, Clay^ i. 162-165 ; Hart, Foj-mation, 233-234. 

225. Convention with Great Britain. — The Oregon 
Country. — The Fisheries. 

Topics and References. 

1. American claims to the Oregon country contested by Great 
Britain. — Agreement for a joint occupation. 2. Settlement of the 
fisheries question. McMaster, vi. 457-474; Benton, i. ch. v.; Hil- 
dreth, vi. 659-660 ; Hart, Formation, 233. 

226. Question of Slavery Extension. 

Topics and References. 

I. Why Texas was not claimed from Spain. 2. Sectional feel- 
ing over the extension of slavery. 3. Equality in number of slave 
States and free States. — Its importance to the slaveholding 
interest. — Increasing inequality in population. 4. Admission of 
Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois, and Alabama. 5. Question concern- 
ing the Louisiana Purchase. Schouler, iii. 96-101, 136-147, 176-178: 
Schurz, Clay^ i. 163-164, 172-175; Hart, For?natio?i, 236-238; 
Gordy, ii. 390-400 ; V>\.\rgtss, Middle Pe?'iod, 51-58, 61-66; Hoist, 
United States^ i. 350-357 ; Nicolay and Hay, i. 322-324. 

227. The Missouri Compromise. 

Topics and References. 

I. Exciting proposal to exclude slavery from Missouri. 2. Pro- 
posal to pair Maine with Missouri. — Deadlock in Congress. 
3. Agreement upon the " Missouri Compromise " (text in Mac- 
Donald, ii. 219-224). Admission of Maine. Schurz, (7/«_y, i. 1 72, 
175-182 ; Burgess, Middle Period, 66-95 ; McMaster, iv. 570-594 ; 
Gordy, ii. 408-416; Hoist, United States^ i. 357-378; Schouler, 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 389 

iii. 101-103, 147-171; Hart, Formation^ 238-240 ; Hildreth, vi. 661- 
676, 682-685, 687-696. 

4. Reopening of the question by the Missouri constitution. — 
Threatening situation. 5. Fundamental condition of the final ad- 
mission of Missouri (text in MacDonald, ii. 225-226). — Influence 
of Henry Clay. Schurz, Clay^ i. 183-193 ; Benton, i. 8-10 ; Bur- 
gess, Middle Pe?'iod, 95-103 ; McMaster, iv. 594-601 ; Gordy, ii. 
416-439; Hoist, U7iited States^ i. 378-381; Schouler, iii. 178-186; 
Hart, Formalion, 240-241 ; Hart, Contemp's^ iii. 452-458 ; Hildreth, 
vi. 702-703, 705-712. 

6. Wisdom of the Compromise. Schurz, Clay^ i. 194-199 ; Gordy, 
ii. 440-444; Burgess, Middle Period^ 103-107; Schouler, iii. 171- 
173 ; Am. Hist. Ass'n, Annual Rep'' t^ i^gs, 289-294. 

228. Unanimous Reelection of President Monroe. 

Topics and References. 

I. Circumstances of the election of 1820. Schouler, iii. 197-199. 

229. Internal Improvements and Protective Tariffs. 

Topics and References. 

I, The questions on which new parties would be formed. 2. The 
protective tariff of 1824. 3. Clay's "American System." — Web- 
ster's opposition. Gordy, ii. 484-488, and ch. xxviii.; Hoist, United 
States, i. 388-403 ; McMaster, iv. 410-415, 422-426, 510-521 ; 
Schouler, iii. 247-254, 295-298 ; Hart, Formation, 247-248, 253- 
255 ; Schurz, Clay, i. 212-221; Benton, i. 1-4, and ch. xiii.; Clay, 
V. 254-294 ; Webster, iii. 94-149 ; Taussig, 23-24 ; EUiott, 194-236.. 
Research. — The policy of " internal improvements " as advocated 

by Mr. Clay. Clay, i. ch. xix., v. 115-135. 

230. The Monroe Doctrine. 

Topics and References. 

I. Circumstances which called out the declaration known as 
the " Monroe Doctrine." — The " Holy Alliance " (text in Hart, 
Contei7tp''s, iii. 479-480) and Spanish-American independence. 2. 
Canning's suggestion. 3. The two passages of President Mon- 
roe's message that embody the "doctrine" (text in MacDonald, 
ii. 228-231 ; Hart, Conte7np's, iii. 494-498). Gilman, 156-174 ; Whar- 
ton, Digest, i. sect. $"]', McMaster, v. 28-48 ; Hart, Formation^ 



390 DEMOCRACY FINDING INDEPENDENCE. 

241-244; Gordy, ii. 4S8-495 ; Burgess, Middle Perwd^ 122-127 ; 
Schouler, iii. 277-290, 292-293 ; Tucker. 

4. What it does and does not mean. Gordy. ii. 495-496 ; Burgess, 
Middle Period, 127-128; Schouler, iii. 290-291; Hart, Contenip's, 
iii. 499-501. 

231. The Visit of Lafayette. 

Topics and Referenxes. 

I. Entertainment of Lafayette as the nation's guest. Tucker- 
man, ii. ch. vii.; Sargent, i. S9-95 ; Benton, i. 29-31; Schouler, 
iii. 316-324. 

232. Presidential Election of 1824-1825. — The 
" Bargain and Corruption " Cry. 

Topics and References. 

I. The single party with four candidates. 2. Failure to elect by 
the popular vote. — Election in the House of Representatives. 
3. Clay favors Adams and is made Secretar}- of State. — Cry of 
"bargain and corruption." 4. Use of the charge in the next elec- 
tion. Schurz, Clay,\. 221-232, 236-257, 276-2S6 ; Sumner, /^7r/&- 
sopi, 76-99: Quincy, /. Q. Adams, ch. vii.; McMaster, v. 55-81, 
488-513; Burgess, Middle Period, 131-144; Hart, Formation, 
248-251; Gordy, ii. 511-535; Schouler, iii. 304-316,324-329, 338- 
342 ; Benton, i. 47-49 ; J. O. Adams, vi. 269, 289-294, 302-303, 312- 
317, 450-453- 470-473^ 505-509^ S~S ; Clay, i. ch. xiv.-.v^-iii., v.341- 

355- 

5. Jackson's belief in the matter. Schurz, Clay, \. 320-324. 

233. Combination against the Adams Administra- 
tion. — " State rights " Reaction in the South. 

Topics and References. 

1. Organized opposition to the Administration. Hart, Forma- 
tion, 259-260 ; Gordy, ii. 536-542, 548-550, 559-560, 568 ; Schurz, 
Clay, i. 258-265 ; Sumner, Jackson, 100-106 ; Schouler, iii. 336- 
337, 344-346. 409-413- 416-4-0 ; Sargent, i. 106-114. 

2. The southern " state rights " movement. — Pro-slavery reac- 
tion against ''protection" and "internal improvements." Burgess, 
Middle Period, 108-122, 129-130 ; Hoist, Calhoun, 66-76 ; Sumner, 
Jackson, 108-114 ; Schouler, iii. 381-385. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 391 

234. New Construction of Political Parties. — 
National Republicans and Democrats. 

Topics and Referenxes. 

I. The two parties formed, for and against the Administration. 
Schurz, CAzj', i. 311-320 ; Gordy, ii. 543-54S, 561-568; Burgess, 
Middle Period, 144-146. 

235. Deaths of Jefferson and Adams. 

Topics and References. 

I. The extraordinary coincidence of their deaths on the 50th an- 
niversary of the Declaration of Independence. Webster, i. T09- 
150; Benton, i. ch. xxxi.; Schouler, iii. 3S6-388 ; Islorse, Jeffer- 
son, 344. 

236. The Panama Congress. — Georgia and the 
Indian Tribes. 

Topics and References. 

1. The Congress of the Spanish-American repubhcs. — Opposi- 
tion to a representation from the United States. McMaster, v. 433- 
459 ; Hoist, United States, \. 409-432 ; Schurz, Cla}', i. 267-275 ; 
Sumner, Jackson, 106-10S ; Burgess, Middle Period, 146-155 ; 
Gordy. ii. 550-558; HthcX, Formation, 251-253 ; Hart, Contevip's, 
iii. 506-508 ; Schouler, iii. 358-366 ; Webster, iii. 178-217 ; Benton, 
i. ch. XXV. 

2. Powerlessness of the President to fulfil treaty obligations 
with the Indians. Hoist, United States, i. 433-458 ; Sumner, yizc-/?"- 
son, 174-179; McMaster, v. 175-183; Benton, i. ch. xxiv.-xxvi.; 
Hart, Formation, 255-256 ; Schouler, iii. 370-380. 

237. The " Tariff of Abominations." 

Topics and References. 

I. The tariff bill of 1828. — Alleged scheme in framing it. 
2. Massachusetts joins the '* protectionist " States. — Changed at- 
titudes of Webster and Calhoun. Taussig, 68-101; Elliott, 236- 
246; Sumner, Jackson, 197-206 ; McMaster, v. 227-255 ; Gordy, 
ii. 569-574; Lodge, Webster, 1 56-1 71; Burgess, Middle Period, 
157-163 ; Hart, Formation, 257-258; Webster, iii. 228-247; Ben- 
ton, i. ch. xxxiv. 



392 DEMOCRACY FINDING INDEPENDENCE. 

238. Presidential Election of 1828. — The Jackson 

Triumph, 

Topics and References. 

I. Jackson's victory in the west, in the south, and in most of the 
middle States. 2. The Anti-Masonic party. 3. New York " CHn- 
tonians *' and " Bucktails." Gordy, ii. 575-581; Hart, Formation^ 
260-262 ; Schurz, Clay, i. 287-292, 340-341 ; Sumner, Jackson, 
1 13-1 18, 250-254 ; Schouler, iii. 434-439 ; Burgess. Middle Period, 
163-165 ; McMaster, v. 517-519 ; Benton, i. ch. xxxviii. 



u 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE JACKSON PERIOD. 1829-184O 

239. Pi'esident Jackson and his Advisers. 1829. 
The election of Andrew Jackson to be President of the 
United States has been described as a poHtical revolu- 
tion, and there seems to be not much exaggeration in the 
phrase. Indeed, the contrast in character between him 
and his predecessors was little less than a revolution in 
itself. They had been picked, as statesmen, 

r 1 , • 1 1 r • T IT President 

from the highest ciass oi tranied public men, — Jackson 
men of trusted knowledge and judgment, and of predeces- 

SOTS. 

trusted temper and self-command. The choice 
of General Jackson was made on no such ground. Bred 
under rude frontier conditions, he not only lacked politi- 
cal knowledge and general cultivation of mind, but his 
wilful and passionate nature knew nothing of discipline 
or self-restraint. His judgment was ruled by prejudices, 
and his first impressions gave him unalterable beliefs. 
Fortunately the American Union was among the objects 
of his most passionate belief, and that gave an impor- 
tant leadinsf to his course. 

All the influences surrounding the executive were revo- 
lutionized under the Jackson regime. Hitherto the Presi- 
dent's counsellors had been the heads of the important 
departments of his administration, standing in responsi- 
ble relations to the public and himself ; but President 
Jackson took most of his advice from men who held 
subordinate places in the administration, or none at all. 



394 EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

They were men whose only mark in American history 
was made by the doubtful methods they brought into 
our national politics, and the covert influence they had 
with a President whose military popularity and personal 
force gave him extraordinary power. They formed what 

was called at the time a ** kitchen cabinet," 
"idtchen meaning that it was a private council, which 

superseded the functions of the proper cabinet 
of official chiefs. John H. Eaton, Secretary of War, was 
the only head of a department who seemed to belong to 
the "kitchen cabinet ; " but Martin Van Buren, the Sec- 
retary of State, had the President's confidence, and ex- 
erted an influence that was generally good. The char- 
acters of the politician and the statesman were mixed 
remarkably in Van Buren, and he was unequalled as a 
politician in adroitness and skill. He was the acknow- 
ledged chief of a knot of able leaders in New York, 
known as the ''Albany Regency," who ruled the Jackson 
Democracy of that State for many years. 

240. The *' Spoils System." 1829. The worst of 
the changes brought on the government by the altered 
influences surrounding the executive was a change of 
principle and of practice in dealing with employments in 
the national public service. During the forty years that 
had passed, from the organization of the federal govern- 
previous rnent to the inauguration of President Jackson, 
fromomce, only 73 removals from office had been made, 
1789-1829. ^^^ nearly all of them for reasons with which 
party politics had nothing to do. Jefferson, who removed 
39 of the number, displaced a few for political reasons, 
claiming that it was just to do so because Federalists 
held most of the places ; but Madison, Monroe, and John 
Quincy Adams appear to have made no changes on 
political grounds. Mr. Crawford, Monroe's Secretary of 



THE JACKSON PERIOD. 395 

the Treasury, procured the passage of an act in 1820, 

which fixed a four years' term for many offices, and so 

opened an opportunity, without arbitrary re- pour years' 

moval, for frequent changes to be made ; but SSJe?* 

neither Monroe nor Adams took any advantage 

of the law. They are said to have reappointed every 

official whose record of service was satisfactory ; though 

half the public servants whom Adams treated in that 

high-minded way were openly enlisted against him, in 

the Jackson campaign. 

Already in some of the States — in New York most 

of all — the political factions had made " spoils " or prizes 

of evervthins: in the public service to which a 

. , • r 111 "Spoils 

temptmg salary or temptmg fees could be at- system" in 

tached; and that "spoils system," as we char- 
acterize it, which debases politics and drives men of high 
character out of public life, was carried into the national 
administration upon the instant that Jackson took it in 
hand. To punish his enemies and reward his friends was 
a maxim of policy that his mind approved. In 

^ ■' ^ Jackson's 

the first year of his presidency he removed 734 removals, 
officials, to make places for his own partisans, 
and by their similar treatment of subordinates it is esti- 
mated that more than 2000 changes were made. " Rota- 
tion in office " was announced to be the Democratic policy, 
in order to give as many citizens as possible their turn 
at what was sometimes described coarsely as " feeding 
at the public crib." For more than fifty years thereafter 
the pestilence of the "spoils system " raged in American 
politics with no check. 

241. Forecast of Presidential Policy. 1829. The 
first annual message of President Jackson was a signifi- 
cant forecasting of some of the lines on which his mind 
was being moved. One passage gave warning of hostil- 



396 EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

ity to the United States Bank. Another indicated the 
Hostility to general purpose of the Administration to enter 
the Bank, upon a new championship of independent rights 
and powers in the States. That purpose was revealed 
more distinctly in remarks on the subject of internal im- 
provements, and on the Indian question that had risen 
in Georgia during President Adams's term. The whole 
policy of internal improvements was condemned. It was 
recommended that the general government leave all un- 
Hostiiityto dertakings of public works to the States, and 
Improve- distribute its surplus revenue among them for 
ments. their use in such works. A few months later 
the President repeated his arguments and recommenda- 
tions on the subject more strenuously, in vetoing a bill 
which required the government to take stock in a Ken- 
tucky turnpike road. He found the policy hard to kill, 
even in his own party ; but opposition to internal im- 
provements by the federal government did become a 
Democratic doctrine before the end of the Jackson rule. 
242. Treatment of Indian Tribes. 1829-1843. On 
the Indian issue between Georgia and the general gov- 
ernment the President upheld the State in its violation 
of national treaties with the Cherokees and Creeks, and 
its defiance of the national government to protect those 
tribes in their treaty rights. Later, the Cherokees car- 
ried their case to the Supreme Court of the United 
States, and obtained mandates which the governor and 
legislature of Georgia refused to obey, and which Presi- 
dent Jackson refused to enforce. Within the next few 
years the southern Indian tribes east of the Mississippi 
Formation were forced to migrate westward into the In- 
TeSi^tory, ^^^^ Territory, which was set apart for them 
1834. jj^ 1834. A second war with the Seminoles 

of Florida, most cruel and destructive on both sides, and 



THE JACKSON PERIOD. 397 

lasting for eight years, from 1835 till 1843, was conse- 
quent on this measure. A shorter conflict in the north- 
west, with Indians of the tribes of Sacs and Foxes, which 
were removed to the farther west, occurred in 1832. It 
was known as the "Black Hawk War," from the name 
of the leading chief. 

243. President Jackson and the Protective Tariff. 
Calhoun and " Nullification." 1829-1830. On one sub- 
ject of importance to the champions of state rights, the 
President gave less satisfaction in his message of 1829. 
He spoke of the tariff in terms which showed that the 
doctrine of " protection " to home industries against 
foreign competition was attractive to his mind. His 
attitude was a disappointment to the south. Intense 
feeling on the subject had been worked up, especially in 
South Carolina, since the passage of the " tariff of abomi- 
nations" in the previous year. Vice-President Calhoun 
and others were leading a movement to bring the theory 
of " nullification," propounded in the Kentucky Resolu- 
tions of 1798 (see sect. 172) into practical operation, by 
causing the State of South Carolina to declare the pro- 
tective tariff laws null and void of effect within the limits 
of the State, and to take measures for resisting the 
enforcement of those laws. This proceeding of " nullifi- 
cation " was claimed to be not rebellious in its nature, 
but the exercise of a strictly constitutional right. The 
argument relied upon to prove it so was furnished mainly 
by Calhoun, in a series of elaborate papers, g^^^j^ 
beginning with one sent by him to the South » sipJai. 
Carolina legislature, and adopted by that body ^^°""" 
as its own " Exposition," immediately after the passage 
of the tariff of 1828. 

Nor was it only as a remedy for the immediate grievance 
of the tariff that the minds of the South Carolinians were 



39^ EXFANSION IX THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

dwellinsr on the doctrine of nullification. For when, in 
Januarv, 1S30, a resolution was introduced in the Senate 
which seemed to have the purpose of restricting the sale 
of public lands. Senator Hayne of that State 



5^[* made it the occasion of a speech on the nature 
1830. q£ ^Jj^ Federal Union and the meaning of the 

Constitution, leading up to an emphatic statement of the 
theor}* of nullification and its grounds. Certain bearings 
in that direction of treatment had been given to the 
public land question by some expressions from the manu- 
facturing States of the east. Those States were showing 
a selfish jealousy of western expansion, because their 
working population was dra\\Ti avs*ay by the attraction of 
cheap farms, and wages were raised. The land question 
was thus connected with the tariff question, in southern 
\'iews ; and hence it was that the most important debate 
„ ^ . in Consress on the theorv of " nullification " 

Webstar s . , ^ - . , , . 

reply. arose m the benate upon a smiple resolution 

1830. . . . ^ r . 1 

ot mquir}- concernmg the sales of public lands. 
Daniel Webster then delivered his greatest constitutional 
speech, — perhaps the most powerful, in both argument 
and eloquence, of all his speeches. — on the 26th of 
Januar}-. 1830. in reply to Hayne. 

Xot long after this. President Jackson gxwe the nul- 
lifiers a check. Despite the inclination he had showTi 
to\^*ard protectionist beliefs, they felt confident that his 
notions of " state rights '* would lead him to deal as ten- 
derly with a nullification of tariff law by South Carolina 
as he had dealt with the nullification of Indian treaties 
in the Georgia case. They did not reckon on the differ- 
ent \-iews which a mind like Jackson's would take of 
his officivil duty toward a law that he believed in, and 
his duty toward one which he disapproved. He believed 
to a certain extent in protective tariff's, and he believed 



THE JACKSON PERIOD. 399 

very ardently in the necessity for preserving the Union 
of States. The latter was one of the strongest con- 
victions he had, and it is not likely that Calhoun could 
have persuaded him that nullification did not mean dis- 
union, even if he had been on good terms with Calhoun. 
But President Jackson was just discovering, in 

, . - ' ^ , , , . , . Jackson 

the wniter ot 1830, that when his conduct m and cai- 

houn. 

the beminole war (see sect. 223) was dis- 
cussed by the cabinet of President Monroe, Calhoun 
had not been as he supposed his sole champion, but had 
striven to have him called to sharp account. His con- 
sequent ^^Tath against Calhoun may have added some 
heat to his feeling against the movement of which Cal- 
houn was the notable head. On Jefferson's birthday 
(April 13) in 1S30. at a banquet where the nullifiers 
expected to talk principally about the Kentucky resolu- 
tions of 179S, he discomfited them by offering as a toast, 
"Our Federal Union: It must be preserved." After 
that there was little doubt as to what his attitude toward 
their projects would be. 

244. Cabinet Reconstruction. 1831. The Presi- 
dent's rupture with Calhoun led, in the spring of 183 1, 
to a reconstruction of his cabinet, three of the members 
of which were political friends of the \'ice-President 
and were dismissed. Van Buren and E^ton resigned, 
the former to become openly, with Jackson's approval, a 
candidate, first for the \-ice-presidency, during a second 
term to be claimed for Jackson in the presidency, and 
then for the latter's seat, to which Calhoun had aspired. 
The reconstructed cabinet included Edward Livingston, 
of Louisiana, in the State Department, Louis McLane, 
of Delaware, in the Treasury. Lewis Cass, of Michigan, 
and Levi Woodbury, of New Hampshire, Secretaries of 
War and the Xa\y, and Roger B. Taney, of Maryland, 
as Attorney-General. 



400 EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

At the same time the " kitchen cabinet " underwent 
an important change, Duff Green, who edited a Wash- 
ington newspaper, dropping out, to follow the fortunes 
of Calhoun, and Francis P. Blair coming from Ken- 
tucky to take his place, and to found a famous admin- 
istration journal named *• The Globe." 

245. The Bank Question in the Presidential Can- 
vass. 1832. By this time it was well settled that Jack- 
son would be put forward by the Democratic party for 
reelection in 1832, and that the National Republicans 
would oppose him with Henry Clay. It was equally cer- 
tain that the Anti-Masons, now grown to be quite a 
formidable party in several northern States besides New 
York, would be, in some manner, in the field. So far, 
the substantial issues between the President and his op- 
ponents related only to internal improvements and the 
character of the Order of Free Masons. Clay wanted a 
more positive and stirring question in the canvass, and 
believed it was to be found in the President's hostility to 
the United States Bank. That hostility had been ex- 
oaered pressed a second time in the message of 1830 ; 
?e^)ected, t>ut there are said to have been proposals to the 
^^' bank, in 183 1, of a modified charter, which the 

administration would approve and which the officers of 
the bank were willing to accept. Clay, Webster, and 
other political champions of the bank objected, however, 
to the offered compromise, and insisted on staking the 
fate of the institution on the presidential fight. This was 
a double blunder, in statesmanship and in political man- 
agement, as they learned to their cost ; but their will pre- 
vailed, and the gauntlet on the bank question was thrown 
down by the National Republican convention which nom- 
inated Clay, in December, 1831.^ Its main appeal to 

1 This presidential election of 1832 was the first in which the 



THE JACKSON PERIOD. 4OI 

the country against Jackson was on the ground that he 
would veto a re-charter of the United States Bank. Then, 
to force the issue, the bank was persuaded to apply for 
the new charter at once, and the question was fought 
over in both branches of Congress through most of the 
session, with final success to the bank. The chartering 
act was sent to the President on the 4th of July, 

1 1-1 1 Thechar- 

18^2, and he returned it on the loth with a veto terandthe 

^ . veto, 1832. 

message, in which all possible arguments against 
the bank, both sound and unsound, were arrayed with ex- 
traordinary skill. The effect of that message in the coun- 
try was more fatal to the opponents of Jackson than they 
suspected till the returns of the election, four months 

later, came in. 

246. The Tariff Act of 1832. Almost simultane- 
ously with the bank bill and the veto message, another 
gage of battle was thrown into the arena of combat by 
the passage and signing of a new tariff act, which amended 
the "abominations" of the act of 1828 so far as con- 
cerned the manufacturer's complaints, but which virtually 
challenged the nuUifiers to do their worst. Clay had ap- 
peared in the Senate this session, and the act was sub- 
stantially his, embodying the principles of his '' American 
system," keeping high duties on articles in competition 
with home products, and lowering or abolishing them 
on commodities not produced at home. His imperious 
influence carried the measure, which reduced revenue 
very little, and that little in no way that suited the south. 
It was to go into effect on the 3d of March, 1833. The 
President was sufficiently satisfied with it to sign the act. 

247. Reelection of President Jackson. 1832. The 

candidates were formally nominated by national conventions of the 
several parties. There had been some previous use of nominating 
conventions in certain States, but not much. 



402 EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

excitement of the presidential canvass was now at its 
height. The Democrats had formally nominated Jackson 
and Van Buren in the previous May, and the Anti-Ma- 
sonic party, long before, had named William Wirt. That 
the opposition to Jackson was divided mattered little, 
for the country gave him an enormous majority over 
both Clay and Wirt. He carried every State except 
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maryland, Delaware, and 
Kentucky, which went for Clay, Vermont, which gave 
Wirt a majority, and South Carolina, which had a nulli- 
fying candidate (John Floyd) of its own. The Bank of 
the United States was doomed to death by the popular 
verdict which its friends had invoked, and an impatient 
magistrate waited for the earliest opportunity to execute 
the decree. 

248. The Nullifying Ordinance of South Carolina. — 
The •'Compromise Tariff." 1832. But the President 
had nullification to deal with first. On the 24th of No- 
vember a State Conventioi), called by the legislature of 
South Carolina, passed an ordinance which declared the 
tariff acts of 1828 and 1832 to be null and of no effect 
in that State ; which forbade appeals from State to Fed- 
eral courts, in any case arising under the ordinance ; 
and which declared that South Carolina would secede 
from the Union if resistance to her proceedings should 
be attempted by the United States ; but the ordinance 
was not to take effect until the ist of February, 1833. 

And now it was that the best of the strong stuff in 
the character of President Jackson was called out. With 
a quiet and even gentle firmness that was most admir- 
able he laid his iron hand on the rebellious State and bade 
it beware. Two vessels of the navy were ordered to 
Charleston, and General Scott was sent to the city with 
troops, not behind him, but within easy call ; and then, on 



THE JACKSON PERIOD. 403 

the loth of December, a proclamation, addressed to the 
people of South Carolina, first reasoned with president 
them, to show the shallowness of the argu- pfoSlma- 
ments by which they had been misled, and ^°"' •'■®^^- 
finally said to them with solemn emphasis : '' The laws 
of the United States must be executed. I have no dis- 
cretionary power on the subject ; my duty is emphatically 
pronounced in the Constitution. Those who told you 
that you might peaceably prevent their execution deceived 
you, . . . Their object is disunion. But be not deceived 
by names. Disunion by armed force is treason." ^ 

It was a scant majority of the people of the State 
who had put the nullifiers in control of its government ; 
but they answered the President with defiance. 

^ South 

Their lee^islature proceeded to pass laws for Carolina's 

^ ^ ^ defiance, 

carrying the ordinance of nullification into effect, 

and to put the State under arms ; whereupon the Presi- 
dent applied to Congress for further powers, to remove 
custom-houses, suspend or abolish customs districts, and 
use other means for meeting the demands of the situa- 
tion, besides those of arms. The necessary legislation 
was undertaken at once ; but conciliatory influences were 
working actively at the same time. Mr. Clay was now 
willing to lower the barriers of his ''American system," 
and led the way in revising the tariff once more. The 
two measures, " Force Bill " and " Compromise 'iYorce 
Tariff," were under debate when the ist of Scompro*- 
F'ebruary came, and South Carolina postponed TariH" 
the operation of her ordinance to await the re- •'•®^^" 
suit. Both bills reached the President and were signed by 
him on the 2d of March. The " Compromise Tariff" act 

1 This proclamation, one of the most admirable and important 
of American state papers, is known to have been written by Ed- 
ward Livingston, the Secretary of State. 



404 EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

provided for successive deductions from the rates of duty 
until, in 1842, there should be none to exceed 20 per 
cent. The nullifiers professed satisfaction, reassembled 
their convention, repealed their ordinance, and peace was 
restored. On both sides there were boasts of victory, 
with some ground for both ; but the puerile doctrine of 
nullification had been destroyed practically, and that 
should suffice for our satisfaction with the event. 

249. Removal of Government Deposits from the 
United States Bank. 1833. And now the President 
was free to turn his attention to the Bank of the United 
States. He considered that the people, in reelecting him 
by a great majority, had endowed him with the sovereignty 
of their will, and his arbitrary disposition was increased. 
Especially concerning the bank, he believed that he had 
received a command straight from the people, against 
which nothing should have weight. He doubted the 
soundness of the institution and the safety of the public 
Congress funds that were trusted to it. At his request, 
fary^r"" Congress investigated and decided that the 
?a"orthe deposits in the bank were safe. It was the 
bank. same Congress, however, which had voted to 

re-charter the bank, and, having no confidence in its 
judgment on the subject, the President determined to 
act on his own. By law, it was the Secretary of the 
Treasury, not the President, who had authority to remove 
the deposits, and Secretary McLane was a believer in 
the bank. McLane, accordingly, was transferred to the 
State Department, from which Mr. Livingston was sent 
as minister to France. Then the President invited to the 
Treasury a Mr. Duane, a known opponent of the bank, 
who might be expected to take the action desired. But 
Mr. Duane proved intractable in the matter, refusing to 
disturb the business of the country by a sudden with- 



THE JACKSON PERIOD. 405 

drawal of government deposits from the bank, and con- 
tending that it should not be done without congressional 
assent. His views were shared by a majority of the 
official cabinet ; but the headstrong President, Dismissal 
urged on by some of his advisers in the AppSiS-" 
''kitchen cabinet," and by the Attorney-Gen- Taney* 
eral, Roger B. Taney, would not be turned from ^^^^' 
the course he had determined to take. Duane was dis- 
missed, and Taney was put in his place. In September 
the latter ordered the public money in the bank, about 
;^ 10,000,000 in amount, to be drawn as needed, and no 
more deposits to be made. The effect, as predicted, was 
serious for a time ; but the bank went through the dis- 
turbing operation, and, obtaining a charter from pateofthe 
the State of Pennsylvania was carried on for ^^^" 
a few years more, till a day of general ruin arrived and 
it went down in the crash. 

There are many good reasons for believing that the 
Bank of the United States, as a centralized monetary 
power, peculiarly exposed to political influences, was a 
dangerous institution to have growth, and that it was best 
for the country that it should be brought to an end ; 
but sound principles of constitutional government were 
violated in the methods by which it was attacked and 
destroyed. A resolution by the Senate of cen- 
sure on the President's conduct drew from him of the 

President 

an elaborate protest, assertinsr the independence expunged, 

1833-1837. 

of the executive with great force. His party 
friends never ceased to demand the expunging of the 
censure from the Senate journal until they carried their 
point, in 1837. 

250. Aggressive Anti-slavery Agitation. — The 
Abolitionists. 1831-1836. Other agitations were now 
in preparation for the country, among them a new excite- 



406 EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

ment of feeling on the subject of slavery. Hitherto 
the antagonism to slavery had been little more than a 
resisting disposition, manifested on occasional questions, 
like that which brought about the Missouri Compromise. 
Now it was becoming aggressive, and was being organized 
for persistent attack, not merely to oppose and restrict, 
William ^'^^ ^^ destroy. Its crusade was opened in a 
Garr?son, Startling way by William Lloyd Garrison, a 
1821- young man, then unknown and poor,' who be- 

gan the publication of "The Liberator," a small "aboli- 
tion" journal, at Boston, in 183 1. Garrison attacked 
slavery as an intolerable crime against humanity, for 
which the whole nation was accountable no less than 
the slaveholding States, and he denounced every com- 
promise with the latter, including the compromises of 
the Federal Constitution and the Constitution itself. At 
first there were not many to approve the violence and 
the indifference to all consequences of disunion and civil 
conflict which this proposed ; and the abolition agitation 
might have had little influence for many years, if the 
slaveholding interest, in fierce endeavors to put it down, 
had not attempted to crush free opinion and free speech 
in all the States. 

The founding of "The Liberator" in 1831 was fol- 
lowed by the organization of a New England Anti- 
j^^^^_ slavery Society in 1832, and of an American 

socreues, Society in the following year. If the early 
1831-1832. membership of those societies was small, the 
zeal in them was burning and their activity intense. 
Through public meetings and printed tracts and periodi- 
cals, they labored with incessant energy to "rouse the 
national conscience ; " but the first important effect of 
their work was an excitement of rage and alarm in the 
slaveholding States. The people in those States were 



THE JACKSON PERIOD. 407 

stirred, not only by resentment at the attack on their 
labor system, which they looked upon as the most right- 
eous and divinely sanctioned in the world, but by fear 
of the effect of the agitation on their slaves. They lived 
in dread of insurrections, and a recent murder- jj^^ 
ous rising in Virginia (183 1), led by one Nat Ji^Srec- 
Turner, had filled them with fresh alarm. Gar- **°"' ^®^^- 
rison and his fellow abolitionists were denounced as 
malignant ''incendiaries," whose purpose was to madden 
the enslaved blacks, incite them to revolt, and bring 
death and ruin on the south. Especially on that ground 
it was demanded that they should be silenced by force, 
— that their orators should be imprisoned, their presses 
stopped, their publications denied the use of the mails. 

This fierce clamor from the south for the suppression 
of abolitionist speech and print had three effects, on 
three classes of people, in the north. It roused peo- 
ple of one class to defend the threatened freedom of 
tongue and pen ; awakened them to new and serious 
thinking on the subject of slavery, and prepared them 
for any contention with it that did not repudiate the 
Constitution or recklessly imperil the national life. It 
moved people of another class to sympathy ^Yixee 
with the wrath of the slaveholders ; made them ?he agita- 
unflinching political allies of the slaveholding ^^°"' 
interest, ready to go to any lengths with it, in Congress, 
or state legislatures, or courts of law ; and no less ready 
to serve it by mobbing the abolitionists, destroying their 
presses, and threatening their lives. People in the third 
class were merely fretted by the disturbance of the 
country. The class which grew most in numbers was 
the first. It was the anti-slavery sentiment of that in- 
creasing body of citizens which gradually dominated the 
free States and controlled political events. 



408 EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

251. Suppression in Congress of the Right of Peti- 
tion. 1835-1840. The first practical political question 
to be raised by the anti-slavery agitation concerned the 
right of petition, and it was forced on Congress by at- 
tempts to deny a hearing to appeals for the abolition of 
slavery in the District of Columbia. That the national 
government had supreme jurisdiction over its own seat 
could not be denied ; nor could anybody dispute the 
guarantee, in the First Amendment to the Constitution, 
of " the right of the people ... to petition the govern- 
Emancipa- ^"^^1^^." Nevertheless, in the session of 1835- 
Sons^^*^" 3^' when petitions for emancipation in the Dis- 
opposed. ^j-j^^ began to reach Congress in great num- 
bers, a resolute effort to forbid their reception was be- 
gun. It was a fatuous undertaking, because it stirred 
infinitely more feeling in the north than anti-slavery 
agitators could possibly produce. More fatuous still was 
the attempt to exclude anti-slavery literature 
from the from the mails. This had the support of Presi- 
dent Jackson, who recommended, in his mes- 
sage of 1835, the passage of a law to prohibit "the cir- 
culation in the southern States, through the mail, of in- 
cendiary publications intended to instigate the slaves 
to insurrection." The anti-slavery societies denied that 
anything more '' incendiary " than the doctrine of human 
rights in the Declaration of Independence was ever sent 
by them into the south, or that they circulated anything 
among the slaves to excite revolt ; nor does any fact con- 
tradictory of their denial appear to have been shown ; 
but Mr. Calhoun and his followers seemed determined 
to make slavery a forbidden subject to all tongues and 
pens but their own. Even the law proposed by Jackson 
was not acceptable to Calhoun. He demanded that the 
States themselves should determine what printed matter 



THE JACKSON PERIOD. 409 

should and should not be delivered in them through the 
United States mails, and he introduced a bill to that end ; 
but it suffered defeat in the Senate, and never reached 
the House. 

The most effectual agitators of feeling on the subject 
of slavery, in all those years of impassioned agitation, 
were not the orators of abolition, but Calhoun and the 
public men whom he led. They could let pass no oppor- 
tunity for disputing the rights of opposed opinion and 
speech ; thus compelling men to strike at slavery in de- 
fence of free institutions at large. From December, 1835, 
until January, 1840, the struggle to uphold the j^j^j^ 
right of petition in Congress was maintained. 2dSns 
It was then that John Quincy Adams performed i835-i845. 
the highest service of his life. After leaving the presi- 
dency he had accepted an election to the House of Re- 
presentatives, taking his seat in 1831. His own opinion 
was against an agitation at that time for the abolition of 
slavery in the District of Columbia ; but he held the right 
of petition to be a sacred right, and he made himself its 
most resolute and powerful champion in the House. 

The slaveholding interest drew allies enough from the 
north to carry a resolution (known afterward as ..^j^^ 
*' the Atherton Gag ") through the House, in Q^'^p^'^ 
Dec. 1838, which made it the rule that all peti- •'■^^®- 
tions and memorials relating to slavery "shall, without 
being printed or referred, be laid upon the table, and that 
no further action whatever shall be had thereon." From 
session to session thereafter, while Mr. Adams and other 
members continued to present petitions in always increas- 
ing numbers, this rule, which laid them unno- 
ticed on the table, was made more strine:ent, suppressed, 

1840. 

until finally, in January, 1840, the House was 
prevailed upon to defy the Constitution entirely, by re- 



4IO EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

solving that "no petition, memorial, resolution, or other 
paper praying the abolition of slavery in the District of 
Columbia, or any State or Territory, or the slave trade 
between the States or Territories of the United States 
in which it now exists, shall be received by this House, 
or entertained in any way whatever." 

252. Texas. 1835-1837. The " Slave Power," as it 

began to be called, had now succeeded in arraying all the 

feeline^s and judgements that are defensive of 

AUiances ° . . ^ 

of Slave free mstitutions agamst itself. Nevertheless, 

Power. .... . . 

for the time being, it was an almost irresistible 
power in the nation, made so by alliances with ambitious 
politicians in the north, who were drawn to it by the at- 
traction of its solidarity in the south. It was preparing, 
moreover, to increase its power, by further expansions 
of territory in which to create new slave States. The 
intention to acquire Texas for that purpose had been al- 
ways in the southern mind, and the time for fulfilling the 
intention seemed now to be at hand. So many American 
and British settlers had gone into that province of the 
Mexican republic, since the Spanish rule in Mexico was 
overthrown, that their number was said to be 20,000 in 

1835. Generally they were looking forward to becom- 
ing part of the United States, and southern statesmen 
were planning to that end. These American and other 
English-speaking Texans were using slave labor, in defi- 
ance of the Mexican government, which had prohibited 
the importation of slaves in 1824 and decreed emancipa- 
tion in 1820. In other matters they paid Httle 

Texan "^ -^ *■ 

inde- respect to Mexican authority, then weakened 

pendence .... "^ 

declared, by civil conflicts, and, after some collisions 

1836. . 1 T^ • 

with President Santa Anna, they declared their 
independence, on the 2d of March, 1836. Before they 
were well organized, Santa Anna entered the country with 



THE JACKSON PERIOD. 411 

a Mexican army and committed some dreadful atrocities 
at a fortified mission church, called the Alamo, 
and at Goliad; but that was the end of his sue- oouad, 
cess. On the 21st of April his army was crush- jacinto, 

1836 

ingly beaten at San Jacinto, and he was taken 
prisoner by a small force of Texans under General Sam 
Houston, of Tennessee. The independence of Texas, 
though unacknowledged by Mexico, was won by the 
single battle. In October a constitution was adopted 
and a republican government organized, with Houston as 
president, to which government the United States gave 
recognition in the following spring. The Texas ques- 
tion stood at this point when Jackson's administration 
closed. 

253. Extraordinary Growth of the Country. — Be- 
ginnings of a Mania of Speculation. 1825-1833. 
While the country went through the moral agitations 
and political excitements of these last years of the Jack- 
son regime, its whole economic system was in a more 
than equally fevered state. Since recovery from the 
"crisis" of 18 19 (see sect. 221), the increase in popu- 
lation, the spread of western settlement, the rise of new 
towns and growth of older cities, the eager activity of 
public and private enterprise in every field, had had no 
precedent in the modern history of the world. Between 
the census of 1820 and that of 1840 the total 

I]lCr03.S6 of 

population rose from 9,638,000 to 17,053,000, population, 
of which latter number 9,728,000 were in the 
northern States, and 7,334,000 (including 2,486,000 
slaves) were in the south. Ohio grew in that brief 
period from 576,000 to 1,502,000; Indiana from 145,000 
to 678,000; Illinois from 53,000 to 472,000; Michigan 
(admitted as a State in 1837) from 8000 to 211,000; 
Arkansas (admitted in 1836) from 12,000 to 77,000; 



412 EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

Missouri from 56,000 to 323,000 ; and almost the whole 
of this prodigious advance was prior to 1837. It had 
been stimulated immensely by the completion of the 
Erie Canal in 1825, and quite as much, perhaps, 
and by the rapid multiplication of steamboats on 

rivers and lakes. No other country in the 
world had utilized the steamboat so rapidly, or gained so 
much from it ; for no other had such waterways opening 
into such expanses of undeveloped land. Railways, with 
steam locomotion, had their beginning in 1830, and 1273 
miles had been built in the United States within the 
next six years. 

In the rush of this unparalleled progress it is not at all 
strange that even sober-minded people lost their heads, 
Specula- ^^^^^ ^^^^ "^ limit to the continued working of 
^°^' the new agencies of travel and transportation 

that were driving it on. It seemed possible to mark a 
thousand spots where new towns would spring up in the 
next few years ; and no less possible to forecast the 
growth of existing cities and towns. So speculation, 
especially in land, leaped from the reckoning of present 
facts to future possibilities, and went wild. 

254. Second Era of "Wild-cat" Banking and In- 
flation. 1833-1837. It was just at the time when this 
fever of speculation was prepared for by the circum- 
stances of the day that a mischievous stimulant was 
given to it by President Jackson's removal of govern- 
ment deposits from the Bank of the United States to a 
large number of state banks. For a short time, while 
the chanofe was eroino: on, it gave business a 
tionoi check; but that soon passed and was followed 

United , . ■ rr tvt 1, , 

States by quite opposite effects. Naturally there was 

Bank funds. ^ ^ r-^ ^ 

a scramble for the deposits, and a fresh output 
of state charters for new banks, soon running into a new 



THE JACKSON PERIOD. 413 

era of " wild-cat " banking, worse than that which followed 
the War of 18 12 (see sect. 221). Again there was an in- 
flated and depreciated paper currency, an inflated credit 
system, and the speculative spirit was intoxicated still 
more. 

Then came another measure of government which 
helped the mischief on. The last of the public debt 
having been extinguished in 1836, and a surplus exceed- 
ing $42,000,000 having accumulated in the national 
treasury, an act was passed which ordered the distribu- 
tion of all but $5,000,000 of this surplus, as a 
loan without interest, in four quarterly instal- tionof 

, o -T-i r surplus 

ments, among the States. 1 he prospect or revenue, 
that large addition to funds in the States, for 
all sorts of public improvements and other purposes, 
gave still another impulse to speculation ; but when it 
came, in 1837, to the transferring of $9,000,000 every 
three months from banks all over the country into state 
treasuries, the unsound monetary system began to give 
way under the strain. 

Before that effect arrived, however, the President, in 
his headstrong way, against the advice of his official 
cabinet, had struck a blow that would, very likely, have 
sufficed to bring about the inevitable crash. Of the ex- 
cessive revenue flowing into the treasury, a large part 
came from the speculative buying of public lands. Until 
the summer of 1836 the government received most of 
this land revenue in bank-notes of very uncertain worth. 
Then the President, becoming suspicious of the sound- 
ness of the banks and the value of their paper, issued an 
order that is famous in history as the " specie ^j^^ 
circular" of July, 1836, directing that coin only circular," 
should be taken in payment for public lands. ^^^^' 
This, acting together with, the draft on the banks for the 



414 EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

surplus funds, and the distribution of money in the coun- 
try with no reference to current needs of business, gave 
a finishing touch to the unsound condition of affairs ; 
but the general downfall and consequent misery did not 
come upon the country until after General Jackson had 
finished his presidential career. 

255. Election of Martin Van Buren. — Rise of the 
Whig Party. 1836. Had the experience of 1837 come 
a few months earlier than it did, the election of the fall 
of 1836 might not have ratified Jackson's choice of Van 
Buren to take his place. As it was, the able politician- 
statesman of New York was elected President by a clear 
popular majority over three opposing candidates. The 
National Republicans, the Anti-Masons, and some other 
The Whig elements opposed to the Jacksonian Democracy 
'"*^" had now united, and had taken the name of 
Whigs. Their candidate was General William H. Har- 
rison. Judge Hugh L. White, of Tennessee, was a rival 
Democratic candidate, and Daniel Webster received the 
votes of the Massachusetts Whigs. Of the electoral 
votes, Van Buren received 170, Harrison 73, White 26, 
Webster 14. 

256. Influences and Effects of the Presidency of 
Jackson. It is more than possible that the natural 
movement of events, under any presidency in the govern- 
ment, would have swept the country on to a catastrophe 
in business, as ruinous, perhaps, as that w^hich came in 
1837 ; but President Jackson is responsible none the less 
for the effects of his arbitrary dealing with matters which 
he did not comprehend. In some degree, the panic of 
1837 must be counted among his legacies to the country, 
when the eight years of his rule (called by more than 
one historian his*' reign") at Washington was closed. 
The legacies of effect from that extraordinary adminis- 



THE JACKSON PERIOD. 41 5 

tration of a personal will in the government were numer- 
ous and lasting and large. The national char- 
acter was affected profoundly, through one whole national 
generation, at least ; for the ruder and less edu- "^' 
cated people were fascinated and strangely influenced by 
this roughly powerful man. In one way it was an influ- 
ence immensely good, helping to popularize national feel- 
ings, which still needed that culture, even in the north 
and west. Though he tried, as a southerner, to cham- 
pion " state rights," Jackson's political instincts were 
wholly national, his patriotism wholly American, and his 
admirers throughout the country were made to feel as he 
felt. He gave them new reasons, too, for national pride. 
His peremptory way of doing things had some fortunate 
results in foreign affairs. It brought the country very 
close to war with France in 1835, but it accomplished a 
settlement of long-pending claims for French 

Ciippaeef 111 

depredations on American commerce in the foreign 
Napoleonic wars. The persistent refusal of ^° °^' 
England to open her West India trade to American ship- 
ping was overcome in 1830, and, though that was done 
by the suave diplomacy of Van Buren, Jackson got the 
credit of "bringing the English to terms." 

On the other hand, the disposition of General Jackson 
to be " a law unto himself " was not calculated to dissemi- 
nate law-abiding habits and respect for legal pro- 
cesses among the people who looked up to him toTawiess- 
with admiring eyes ; and the country appears to 
have shown a quite marked deterioration in that respect 
— a marked tendency to lawlessness and disorder — 
during the period in which his example of character was 
the most conspicuous one and his influence very great. 

257. The Business Collapse of 1837. In the early 
days of April, 1837, when President Van Buren had been 



4l6 EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

barely a month in the White House, the breaking of 
bubbles in the business world was begun, by commercial 
failures starting at New York. Each downfall caused 
others, and before the month ended the spreading process 
of panic and ruin had strewn the whole country with 
wrecks. On the loth of May the New York 
payment banks Suspended the redemption of their notes 

suspended. . . i i • i c ^^ i 

m com, and their example was lollowed every- 
where within the next week. The prostration of busi- 
ness was the most nearly universal that the country had 
known. 

To most people the catastrophe was a terrifying sur- 
prise, and its causes were utterly misunderstood. It was 
quite commonly supposed to be altogether a consequence 
of bad measures by the government, having the " specie 
circular" for its immediate cause and the overthrow of 
the Bank of the United States for a cause more remote. 
That the general conditions in business had 
not under- been fatally disordered in themselves, and that 
the government had done no more at the most 
than to quicken the disease, was a fact which not many 
could see. Those who believed that the trouble came 
wholly from ill-doings of the government were equally 
persuaded that the government might undo what it had 
done. Immediately there was clamor for a withdrawal 
of the ** specie circular," and for a re-nationalizing of the 
Bank of the United States. Van Buren had 
Buren's the wisdom and the courage to resist those de- 
mands ; and, among economists of the present 
day, enlightened by the added experience of sixty and 
more years, there is hardly a question of the sound states- 
manship of his course, in which he braved adverse public 
opinion to the end of his term. 

258. Action of President Van Buren. — His " In- 



THE JACKSON PERIOD. 417 

dependent Treasury " System. 1837-1840. Having 
called a special session of Congress, to meet in Septem- 
ber, the President set the circumstances of the country 
and of the government before it in a message of rare 
clearness and force. The aim of his exposition was to 
show that, instead of being called upon to palliate the 
effects of past excesses in business, by remedies that 
would only delay a true recovery, the government should 
take a lesson from what had happened, and should sepa- 
rate itself from the whole system of commercial finance, 
with the natural working of which it ought never to in- 
terfere. Since the suspension of the banks, the Treasury 
had been holding its own funds, and the President urged 
that that be made the established practice for the future. 
He asked Congress to provide for the system 
of an " independent treasury," with branches pendent 

1 1 ■ r • ' / 11 1 11 .1 treasury. 

m the chier cities (called commonly the " sub- 
treasury " system), and so make it impossible for politics 
to enter into what ought to be a purely business manage- 
ment of banking affairs. Time has proved the wisdom 
of this proposal, and the independence of the Treasury 
has long been a fixed fact in the United States ; but 
President Van Buren argued for it vainly at the time. 
The House rejected a bill in accord with his recommen- 
dations, which the Senate had passed; but he pressed 
the measure persistently until, in 1840, it became law. 

It is the distinction of Van Buren's administration that 
it contended bravely for sound principles of political 
economy, touching money and banking, and that it did 
so with important educating effects. The lead- 

New Yorlc 

ers of the President's party in New York, Silas tanking 
Wright and others, shared his intelligent views 
on these subjects, and their influence brought about the 
adoption, in 1838, of a general banking law in that State, 



4l8 EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

which stopped the loose chartering of banks by special 
acts, and set a potent example of reform. 

Apparent recovery from the great financial depression 
of 1837 was more rapid than the real cure. In exactly 
Recovery ^ Y^^^ ^^'°"'' ^l^^i^' Suspension the New York 
andreiapse. "banks felt able to resume specie payments, and 
resumption was quite general in the summer and fall of 
1838. Trade sprang up again in too lively a spirit ; there 
was too much buying of foreign goods, and land specula- 
tion began to revive. The result was a relapse in 1839, 
brought on by a state of stress in England ; and from 
this second collapse of business the recovery of the coun- 
try was slow and hard. 

259. The Texas Question. 1837. It was during 
these years, as related already, that the exciting and 
momentous struggle in Congress over the right of pe- 
tition went on. As one effect of that new conflict, the 
Texas question began now to loom large in the politics 
Annexation ^^ ^^e time. A Strong resistance to the pro- 
resisted, jected annexation of the Texan republic, as 
slave territory, was prepared. Proposals for annexation 
came to President Van Buren from a Texas agent at 
Washington, in August, 1837 and were declined. To 
accept them meant probable war with Mexico, as well as 
offence to a large body of the American people, and the 
question was not allowed to reach Congress, through any 
action of the executive, during Van Buren's term. 

260. Rebellion in Canada. 1837-1838. An out- 
-break of rebellion in Canada, in 1837-38, growing out of 

a bad system of colonial government, awakened much 
sympathy in the United States, and a popular desire to 
help it on. Our government had difficulty in keeping 
the nation from becoming involved in another war with 
Great Britain, especially when a militia force from 



THE JACKSON PERIOD. 419 

Canada invaded the American shore of the Niagara and 
burned a small steamer, the Caroline, which the rebels 
had used. In faithfully carrying out the obligations of 
international law and working for the preservation of 
peace, the President offended much heated public feeling, 
especially in his own State. 

261. Presidential Election of 1840. In this, as in 
his dealing with the business troubles of the day. Presi- 
dent Van Buren did his duty at the cost of public favor, 
and did it with a firmness that claims high respect. 
He coveted a reelection ; but that approval of his ad- 
ministration was denied. He was renominated by his 
party in 1840, with little chance of success. The Whigs 
put General Harrison in nomination, again disappointing 
the ambition of their leader, Henry Clay. For Vice- 
President they nominated John Tyler, of Virginia, a 
Calhoun Democrat, who had opposed Jackson's 

GliRr3.ct6r 

bank and tariff measures, but whose present of cam- 
party position was not well defined. No ''plat- 
form," or declaration of principles and policy, was put 
forth by the Whig convention, its plan being to win votes 
on the mere demand for a " change." The plan was car- 
ried out with success, in an extraordinary campaign of 
songs and hurrahs. There was not much discussion of 
political questions, but more singing, cheering, march- 
ing, and meeting in great gatherings for every kind of 
political merrymaking than was ever known before or 
since ; and " Tippecanoe and Tyler too " ^ were borne 

1 General Harrison figured in the campaign principally as the 
hero of the battle of Tippecanoe (see sect. 198). A foolish 
attempt by one of the Democratic papers to belittle him, by saying 
that a pension of a few hundred dollars and a barrel of hard cider 
would content him in his log cabin for life, gave a cue to the Whigs 
which they turned to good account. Log cabins and hard cider 
became effective features of the Harrison demonstrations. 



420 EXPANSION IN THE GREAT VALLEYS. 

into olRce on a wave of enthusiasm which nothing could 
resist. Van Burcn carried only one nortliern State, 
Illinois, and but five States in the south. Ills electoral 
vote was 60; Harrison's, 234. 

TOPICS AND SUr.GFSTF.n KKAniNG AND RESKAKCH. 

239. President Jackson and his Advisers. 

Tories AND Referkxces. 

I. Contrasts between President Jackson and liis predecessors. 
2. His belief in the Ihiion. 3. Changed influences surrounding 
the executive. — The " kitchen cabinet.'' 4. Martin Van Puren 
and the " Albany Regency " in New York. Wilson, Division^ 
()-i2, 23-26, 28-30; Roosevelt, Benton, 72-75; V\\\\o\\, Jackson^ 
iii. ch. xvi. ; Sumner, Jackson, 140-145 ; Schouler, iii. 494-496; 
Shepard, 95-96 ; Hoist, United Stoics, ii. 27-31. 

240. The " Spoils System." 

Topics and Refkkknci.s. 

1. Removals from othce before backson. Lalor, iii. 565-569; 
Morse, .Ayy^v.s-<'//, 215-225; Benton, i. 159-162. 

2. Introductioi\ of the four years' term of office. 3. " Spoils 
system" in New York and other States. 4. Its invasion of the 
national public service. Roosevelt, Benton, 79-85 ; Schurz, Clay, 
i. 332-336; Sumner, y<?</\f<v/, 145-149; Wilson, Division, 26-27, 
30-34; Schouler, iii. 175, 453, 455-462; Fiske, Civil Govt, 261- 
263; Shepard, 38-48, 177-183, iq(); Sargent, i. 2S2-2S7 ; Benton, 
i. 160, 162; Hart, Contenip\sy iii. 531-535. 

241. Forecast of Presidential Policy. 

Topics and References. 

1. Warning of hostility to the Ihiited States l^ank. Sumner, 
Jackson, 236-247; Wilson, 34-35, 7o-1(); Burgess, Jfidd/e Beriod, 
190-200; Schurz, C/ay, i. 351-354; Schouler, iii. 469-474; Ben- 
ton, i. 123-124, and ch. xlix. 

2. " State rights " opposition of the President to internal im- 
provements by the general government. Burgess, Middle Beriod^ 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 42 1 

166-170; Siuwncr, /tii/x'soj/, 193-194; Wilson, 38-39; Schouler, 
iii. 480-4S1. 



242. Treatment of Indian Tribes. 

Topics and Ri':fi'.kkn( i:s. 

I. Violation of national treaties by Geort^ia upheld. 2. Refusal 
to enforce mandates of the Supreme Court. 3. Removal of tribes 
to Indian Territory. 4. Second Seminole War and Black Hawk 
War. Sumner, /aclwofi, 180-183; Wilson, 35-38; Schouler, iii. 
477-480; Benton, ch. li. ; Sargent, i. 177-179, 209-213; Hoist, 
United States, ii. 292-311. 

243. President Jackson and the Protective Tariff. 
— Calhoun and Nullification. 

Topics and Rkkkri:ncks. 

I. Attitude of rrosiilont Jackson towards the protective policy. 

2. Feeling in the south. — Revival of the " nullification" theory. 
— Calhoun's writings (text in IVIacDonald, ii. 231--237). Schouler, 
iii. 468, 481-482, 440-444, 489-491 ; Burgess, Middle Period, 170- 
184; Wilson, Division^ 41-52; Hoist, Calhoun^ 76-84, 96-103; 
Hoist, United States, i. 459-470 ; Sumner, Jaekso7i, 207-220 ; 
Roosevelt, Benton, 88-96 ; Clay, v. 400-406 ; Hart, Contempts, iii. 
544-548. 

3. The Hayne and Webster debate, and how it arose (text in 
Webster, iii. 248-355; MacDonald, ii. 240-259; Johnston, Am. 
Orations, i. 213-282). Schouler, iii. '482-488; Benton, i. ch. xliv. ; 
Sargent, i. 169-174. 

4. The President's feeling. — His rupture with Calhoun. Sum- 
ner, y</t,^'.vt;;/, 1 51-1 5c); Hoist, CalJtoun, 87-96; Wilson, Dii'ision, 
52-54 ; Roosevelt, Benton^ 97-98 ; Schouler, iii. 488-489, 498-501 ; 
Benton, i. ch. xlvi., liii. 

244. Cabinet Reconstruction. 

Topics and Rkki:rknchs. 

I. Cause of cabinet changes in 1831. 2. The new cabinet. 

3. Change in the " kitchen cabinet.'' Sumner, A^^>('y^;/, 159-163 ; 
Wilson, Dii'ision, 54-55; Schouler, iii. 501-502 ; Benton, i. ch. liv.; 
Sargent, i. 184-186. 



422 THE JACKSOX PERIOD. 

245. The Bank Question in the Presidential 

Canvass. 

Topics and References. 

I. Parties, candidates, and issues. 2. Clay's wish to make the 
''bank question'' a political issue. 3. Proposed compromise re- 
fused. 4. Re-chartering act of Congress vetoed by the President 
(text in MacDonald, ii. 261-26S). Schurz, Claw i. 354-357. 37-- 
3S3 ; Sumner. Jackson, 254-276 ; Roosevelt, Benton, 124-130; 
Burgess, Middle Period, 200-209 ; Wilson. Division, 79-So ; Hoist, 
United States, ii. 39-56: Peck, 175-192; Webster, iii. 391-447; 
Clay, V. 523-535 : Benton, i. ch. Ixiii.-lxviii. 

246. The Tariff Act of 1832. 

Topics and References. 

I. Principles embodied in the tariti" of 1S32. 2. Its offensive- 
ness to the south. Taussig, 102-105 : Elliott, 246-266; Schurz, 
Clay, i. 357-365: Swnmtr, Jackson, 221-223: Burgess, Middle 
Period, 1S4-1S9, 220-221; WWsow, Diz' is ion, 55-59: Hoist, United 
States, i. 471-475 ; Peck, 153, 1 58-161 : Clay, V.437-4S6 ; Benton, 
i. ch. Ixix. 

Research. — De Tocqueville's view of American political parties 
in 1S32 compared with what he disting-uished as the "great par- 
ties "' of an earlier time. Tocqueville, i. 222-227. 

247. Reelection of President Jackson. 

Topics and References. 

I. Parties and their candidates in the presidential canvass. 
2. Result of the election. Shepard, 202-212: Wilson, Division, 
62-64: Johnston, Am. Politics, 11S-120: Benton, i. ch. Ixxiii. 

248. Nullifying Ordinance of South Carolina. — 
The "Compromise Tariff." 

Topics and References. 

I. Ordinance of nullitication (text in ISIacDonald, ii. 26S-271 ; 
Earned, Ready Pef.). 2. Action taken by the President. — His 
proclamation (text in MacDonald, ii. 273-283"). Hoist, United 
States, i. 475-484 : Sumner, Jackson, 28 1-285 ; Burgess, Middle 
Period, 221-231 ; Schurz, Clay, ii. 4-9 ; Roosevelt, Benton, 100- 
103: Peck, 193-197; Benton, i. ch. ixxviii.-lxxx. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 423 

3. Action in Congress. — The " Force Bill " (text in MacDon- 
ald, ii. 284-289) and the " Compromise Tariff." 4. The settlement 
of the difficulty. Schurz, C/ay, ii. 9-22 ; Burgess, Middle Period, 
231-241 ; Sumner, Jackson, 285-291 ; Hoist, Calhoun, 104-109 ; 
Hoist, United States, i, 501-505; Roosevelt, Be7ito7i, 1 03-1 13; 
Taussig, 1 09-1 12 ; Peck, 203-214 ; Wilson, Divisio)i^ 59-68 ; Clay, 
V. 536-569 ; Benton, i. ch. Ixxxi.-lxxxvi. 
Research. — De Tocqueville's reasoning, in 1831-1835, as to 

" the chances of duration of the American Union." Tocqueville, 

i- 491-535- 

249. Removal of Grovernment Deposits from the 
United States Bank. 

Topics and References. 

I. Question of the safety of government deposits in the bank. 
2. The President's removal of them, and how it was accomplished 
(texts in MacDonald, ii. 289-303). ^\\vi\\\^x, Jackson, 291-310; 
Johnston, Am. Politics, 123-124; Schurz, Clay, ii. 25-31 ; Hoist, 
United States, ii. 51-68 ; Burgess, Middle Period, 279-281 ; Shep- 
ard, 213-215; Peck, 217-222; Wilson, Divisio?i, 80-82; Kendall, 
374-392; Benton, i. ch. Ixxv., Ixxvii., and 371-400; Clay, v. 575- 
620; Webster, iii. 506-551, iv. 3-81. 

3. After history of the bank. SmwuQV, Jackson , 337-342 ; Ben- 
ton, i. ch. cxi. 

4. View to be taken of the overthrow of the bank. 5. The 
Senate's censure of the President. — The President's protest (text 
in MacDonald, ii. 306-317). The expunging of the resolution. 
Hoist, United States, ii. 68-76; Schurz, Clay, ii. 31-43, 99-106; 
Roosevelt, ^tv//i;«, 132-136, 139-142; Peck, 224-241, 317-327; 
Benton, i.ch. xcix.-ci., ciii., cxxii.-cxxiv., cxli., clix.-clxi. ; Kendall, 
392-422; Sargent, 258-273, 332-344; Webster, iv. 103-147, 292- 
297; Clay, vi. 45-60. 

250. Aggressive Anti-slavery Agitation. — The 
Abolitionists. 

Topics and References. 

I. Beginning of a crusade against slavery. 2. Uncompromising 
ground of the Abolitionists. 3. Influence of their agitation pro- 



424 THE JACKSON PERIOD. 

moted by the slaveholding interest. 4. Formation of anti-slavery 
societies. 5. Causes of feeling in the south. — Fears of insurrec- 
tion. — Demands for silencing the abolitionists. 6. Differing effects 
in the north. 7. The anti-slavery sentiment that grew in the free 
States. Garrison, i. ch. vii.-xiv.: Goldwin Smith, 30-96 ; Schurz, 
Clay^ ii. 70-78 ; Burgess, Middle Period, 244-251 ; Hoist, United 
States, ii. 80-118; Peck, 269-273; Hart, Chase, 36-39* 55-66; 
Hart, Contemfs, iii. 595-597, 602-614. 

Research. — President Jackson and other leading men in Wash- 
ington, as seen by a sagacious foreign observer in 1835. Mar- 
tineau, i. 147-184. 

251. Suppression in Congress of the Right of 

Petition. 

Topics and References. 

I. Attempt to reject petitions for emancipation in the District of 
Columbia. 2. Attempt to exclude anti-slavery writings from the 
mails. Hoist, Calhoun, 124-139, 143-150; Hoist, United States, ii. 
120-139, 235-245; Schurz, Clay, ii. 78-86; Shepard, 233-238; 
Roosevelt, Be?iton, 163-170; Burgess, Middle Pe?-iod, 251-261; 
Benton, i. ch. cxxx.-cxxxi. ; Peck, 273-281 ; Hart, Contetnp's, iii. 
619-622. 

3. Persistent agitation of the slavery question by Calhoun and 
his followers. — The rights they disputed. 4. Defence of the 
right of petition by John Ouincy Adams. 5. The '' Atherton 
Gag," and final suppression of anti-slavery petitions. Hoist, United 
States, W. 2^^-2d>g, 469-479; Hoist, Calhoun, 165-iSi ; Schouler, 
iv. 296-302, 307-308, 423-425 ; Schurz, Clay, ii. 152-163 ; Benton, 
i. ch. cxxxv., ii. ch, xxxiii. 
Research. — The attempt in 1842 to censure John Ouincy Adams 

for presenting a petition which asked for the dissolution of the 

Union. 

252. Texas. 

Topics and References. 

I. Feelings which the "slave power" had arrayed against 
itself. 2. Sources of its power. 3. Desire for Texas. — Situation 
in that Mexican province. 4. American and British settlers in 
Texas. 5. The successful Texan revolt. Roosevelt, Benton, 1 73- 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 425 

181 ; Burgess, Middle Period^ 290-294; Hoist, United States^ ii. 
551-574; Schiirz, Clay, ii. 87-91; Wilson, Division, 141-143; 
Benton, i. ch. cxliv.-cxlv. ; Hart, Contejnp's, iii. 637-641. 



253. Extraordinary National Growth. — Beginnings 
of a Speculative Mania. 

Topics and References. 

I. Increase of population and spread of settlement since 1820. 
2. The principal stimulations. 3. Fevered spirit of speculation. 
Shepard, 247-252; Wilson, Division, 89-90, 102-104; Hoist, 
United States^ ii. 173-174, 178-186; Schurz, Clay^ ii. 11 3-1 14; 
'^Mvsx'Citr, Jackson, 136, 322-325. 

254. Second Era of "Wild-cat" Banking and 

Inflation. 

Topics and References. 

I. Effect of President Jackson's removal of deposits. 2. Dis- 
tribution of surplus revenue and its effect. The President's 
" specie circular " (text in MacDonald, ii. 327-329) and its ef- 
fect. Shepard, 253-261; Roosevelt, Benton, 144-156, 189-192; 
Schurz, Clay, ii. 11 5-1 27; Wilson, Division, 86-88, 91-92; Hoist, 
United States, ii. 174-178, 186-194; Peck, 299-306; Benton, i. 
ch. cxlvi., civ. 

255. Election of Martin Van Buren. 

Topics and References. 

I. Circumstances and result of the presidential election of 1836. 
2. Formation of the Whig party. Johnston, Am. Politics, 128, 
132; Shepard, 219-241 ; Schurz, C/^j, ii. 95-97 ; ^mv^v^^x, Jackson, 
374-382; Benton, i. ch. clii. 

256. Influence and Effects of Jackson's Presidency. 

Topics and References. 

I. President Jackson and the '^Crisis" of 1837. 2. His influ- 
ence on the character of his generation. 3. His national spirit. 
4. The good and evil of his influence. Schurz, Clay, ii. 106-112 ; 



4-6 THE JACKSOX PERIOD. 

Sumner, Jackson, 279-2S0 ; Peck^ 329-341 ; Hoist, United States, 
ii. 76-79: Peck, 3-9-341. 

5. Foreign affairs in President Jackson's administration. Sum- 
ner, Jackson, 164-1 71 . 343-34S. 
Research. — General Jackson in private life, as described by his 

intimate friends. Benton, i. ch. clxv. : Kendall. 0S6 ; Parton, 

Jackson, iii. ch. xlii. 

267. Business Collapse of 1837. 

Topics and References. 

I. Commercial failures and bank suspensions. 2. Common 
misunderstanding of the causes. 3. Demands on the government 
resisted by the President. Shepard, 245-273; Sumner, Am. Cur- 
rency, 102-161 ; Walker, yTcncy, ch. xxi. : Peck, 340-356: Hoist, 
United States, ii. 194-201 ; Schouler, iv. 276-2S2 ; Benton, ii. ch. 
ii.-vii. 

258. Action of President Van Buren. — His 
" Independent Treasury " System. 

Topics and References. 

I. Argument of the President's message. 2. Plan and purpose 
of the '' independent treasun, " system. 3. Distinction of Presi- 
dent Van Buren's administration. Shepard, ch. ix. ; Kinley ; 
Bolles. ii. 351-35S; Wilson. Division, 94-95. 97-9^: Schurz, Ciav. 
ii. 132-144: Hoist, United States, ii. 201-208: Peck. 356-369: 
Schouler, iv. 2S2-2S5, 324-325: Webster, iv. 40 2-4«.x^: Clay. vi. 
63. 86. 94-133, 170-11)4 : Benton, ii. ch. viii., xi. 

4. The general banking law of New York. Wilson, Division, 

95-^7- 

5. Apparent recovery of business in 1S38. and relapse in 1S3Q. 
Hoist, United StiTtes. ii. 210-217: Shepard, 317-31S: Schouler, iv. 
292-294, 347-34S: Benton, ii. ch. xx.-xxiii. 

259. The Texas Question. 

Topics and References. 

I. Annexation declined by President \"an Buren. — Growth of 
opposition. Burgess, Middle Period, 295-301 ; Schouler, iv. 303- 
307: Shepard, 306-307: Benton, ii. ch. xxiv. 



TOPICS. REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 427 

260. Rebellion in Canada. 

Topics and References. 

I. Difficulty in avoiding war with England. Lodge, Webster^ 
246-249, 252 ; Shepard, 300-306 ; Lothrop, 28-37 ; Benton, ii. ch. 
Ixxv.-lxxvi. 

261. Presidential Election of 1840. 

Topics and References. 

I. Re-nomination of Van Buren. 2. Whig nomination of Gen^ 
eral Harrison and John Tyler. 3. Peculiar character of the can- 
vass and election. — The result. Hoist, United States, ii. 360- 
405; Schurz, C/o}', ii. 171-189; Shepard, 323-339; Schouler, iv. 
327-341 ; Sargent, ii. S9-96, 105-111 ; Benton, ii. ch. Iviii. 



SECTIONAL CONTENTION. 
1840-1860. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

EXPANSION TO THE PACIFIC I FOR FREE LABOR OR SLAVE 

labor: which? 1S41-1S4S. 

262. Death of President Harrison. — Vice-President 
Tyler as President. — His Rupture with the Whigs. 
1841-1842. General Harrison enjoyed the honors of 
the presidency a single month. He died, after a brief 
illness, on the 4th of April. 1841, and the Vice-President 
was called to his place. This put Mr. Tyler in a false 
position and produced an unfortunate state of things. 
He was a Democrat in his political opinions, elected to 
office by Whig votes. In the vice-presidency there might 
have been no serious friction between him and the 
partv with which he was expected to act ; but in the 
presidency it was sure to come. !More than friction 
came, in fact, soon after Congress met for a special 
Independent ^^ssion in June. Both houses were controlled 
?bou5iId. ^y ^^^ Whigs, and both acted under the im- 
1841. perious lead of Clay. Their first work was to 

sweep away the independent treasury which \'an Buren 
had labored so hard to create, and President Tyler 
signed their bill. Likewise he approved another mea- 
sure in the Whig programme, which was to divide annu- 
ally among the States the net proceeds from the sales 



EXPANSION TO THE PACIFIC. 429 

of public lands. In most parts of the country this dis- 
tribution was demanded eagerly as a measure of relief, 
many of the States having overburdened themselves with 
debt in the wild period before 1S37. Some were fail- 
ing to pav interest on their bonds ; a few were bringing 
disgrace and discredit on the country by talk of repudi- 
atinir their debts. The distributino- act passed ; 

^ ^ . .. Defaulting 

but with the proviso that, whenever tarift states, 

, . , 1 , , • -, , 1841. 

duties should be raised above twenty per cent., 

the distribution of land revenues should cease ; and that 

proviso, as we shall see, made the act of no effect. 

But these were not the measures that Clay and the 
Whigs had most at heart. Above all things they wanted 
to incorporate a new Bank of the United States, and it 
was on a bill for that purpose that their clash 
with the President came. He vetoed it. on vetoes, 

1841. 

grounds which might, apparently, be overcome. 
After consultation with him, another measure was 
framed, supposed to be adapted to his views ; but either 
he had been strangely misunderstood, or else his views 
had changed, for when the new bill reached him he 
vetoed that, too. This ended the last attempt ever 
made to set up a great national bank, related in a semi- 
official way to the government of the United States. 
Most students of the subject now give approval to 
Tyler's veto, as well as to Jackson's ; but President 
Tyler's conduct in connection with the second bill does 
not appear in a favorable light. 

The Whiirs broke relations with the President and 
opened hostilities at once. Every member of the 
cabinet (he had retained Harrison's) resisfned, 

' '~ Resignation 

excepting- Daniel Webster, who was Secretarv oiwhig 

^ ^ . ' cabinet 

of State, and who had opened an important 
negotiation with England which he wished to carry 



430 SECTIONAL CONTENTION. 

through- The administration became practically a Dem- 
ocratic one, though not acknowledged as such by the 
Democratic party, and the fruits of their \-ictor\- in 1S40 
were snatched from the Whigs. Their next conflict 
with the President occurred upon a revision (1S42) of 
the *• Compromise Tariff" of 1833, made necessary by 
Tarm oi ^^ great a falling off in the revenue from cus- 
1842. toms that the government was in distress. 

Many of the rates of duty were raised above twenty per 
cent., and this, by the effect of the proviso above men- 
tioned, rescinded the act for distributing land revenues. 
The\Miigs sought to avert that effect, but the President 
would not consent. 

263. "Dorr Rebellion" in Rhode Island. — Anti- 
Rent Disturbances in New York. 1841-1844. Two 
parts of the country, Rhode Island and New York, were 
disturbed seriously at this time by movements of popu- 
lar discontent. The old royal charter of Rhode Island 
was still the basis of the government of that State, and 
its restriction of the suffrage to freeholders of 
liSe^^ land had never been changed. In 1S41 the 
Island. disfranchised citizens attempted to take by 
force what the privileged class refused to give, and set 
up a government at Providence which disputed authority 
with that of the old regime. The latter, having law on 
its side, could claim support from the federal govern- 
ment, which was given with effect. The revolutionary 
movement (called '* the Dorr rebellion " from the name 
of its leader and governor-elect) collapsed in 1842 ; but 
its end was attained. Rhode Island adopted a constitu- 
tion which broadened the suffrage and silenced discon- 
tent. 

The New York troubles had an equally ancient ori- 
o-in. in the old creation of Dutch patroon and English 



EXPANSION TO THE PACIFIC. 43I 

manorial estates (see sect. 33). The lands in those huge 
estates were let to tenants on perpetual leases, ^nti-rent 
subject to annual rent payments and other JJfc^^' 
claims, which grew more irksome as time went ^84i-i844. 
on and as democratic ideas gained force. The manorial 
titles were disputed, and combinations were formed to 
resist payment of rents, by both lawful and unlawful 
means. At this period the doings of the *' anti-renters " 
were very disturbing for some years. They failed to 
break the obnoxious land titles ; but the troubles were 
ended gradually by concessions which enabled most of 
the tenants to buy their lands. 

264. The Ashburton Treaty. 1842. Webster re- 
mained in the Tyler cabinet until May, 1843, when he 
withdrew, having finished an important task. Ever 
since the peace of 1783, our northeastern boundary, 
between INIaine, New Hampshire, and the British pro- 
vinces, had been in dispute. Webster had now brought 
it to a settlement, in a treaty concluded with Lord Ash- 
burton, who came to Washington with special powers. 
The so-called Ashburton Treaty, signed August 9, 
1842, included an important arrangement for coopera- 
tion with England in a naval policing of the African 
coast, to stop the piratical slave trade. Furthermore, 
it disposed of questions arising out of the Canadian 
rebellion, or "Patriot W^ar," and provided for the ex- 
tradition of criminals escaping from one country to the 
other ; but it left open the Oregon boundary question, 
which was destined to make trouble very soon. 

265. Texas Annexation Treaty rejected by the 
Senate. 1844. Webster in the State Department had 
blocked action looking to the annexation of Texas, and 
his retirement gave the President a free hand to do in 
that matter according to his desire. President Tyler 



432 SECTIONAL CONTENTION. 

gave the portfolio of the State Department to a strong 
annexationist, Mr. Upshur, and opened secret negotia- 
tions with the Texas government, in the midst of which 
Mr. Upshur was accidentally killed. Mr. Calhoun was 
then induced (March, 1844) to take the State 

Calhoun ^ ; ' ^^' , . , 

negotiates, Department, tor the purpose ot carrymg the 
Texas business through. The result was a 
treaty of annexation, signed and sent to the Senate in 
April, but unexpectedly rejected there, after six weeks 
of debate, by 35 votes against 16. The secret manner in 
which the President had acted, and the probable con- 
sequence of war with Mexico, weighed heavily against 
the treaty, even among southern public men. Jackson 
used his influence in its favor ; but Senator Benton, of 
Missouri, and other staunch Jackson Democrats, were 
against it, and it was opposed in public letters by Clay 
and Van Buren, as meaning war, and as being a new 
cause of discord in the land. 

The vital issue in the matter was that which arose 
between the "slave power," seeking an enlargement of 
its own absolute dominion, and the increasing opposition 
in the northern States to the aggressions of that power. 
The undisguised object of the acquisition was to secure 
Trueoi)iect ^*^^^^ ^^ more new slave States. Ingenious 
^JJf^ efforts were made by Calhoun and Tyler to 
ation. convince the south that English and Mexican 

influences in Texas would abolish slavery there, unless 
the country was taken out of their reach ; and those 
arguments, which consolidated the south for annexation, 
turned more feeling against it in the north. Whether 
the opposing forces would suffice or not to defeat the 
project was now to be seen ; for the question went im- 
mediately to the great jury of the nation, in the presi- 
dential and congressional election of 1844. 



EXPANSION TO THE PACIFIC. 433 

266. The Texas Question and the Presidential 
Election. — Annexation accomplished. 1844-1845. 
Both parties had made their presidential nominations 
while the Texas treaty was pending in the Senate. The 
Whigs nominated Clay by acclamation, four days after 
his public announcement of opposition to an- p^^^ 
nexation, and thus the party accepted his Pi^^^o'^^- 
ground. Van Buren, on the other hand, lost the Demo- 
cratic nomination by reason of his similar declaration. 
James K. Polk, of Tennessee, lately Speaker of the House 
of Representatives, whose principal recommendation to 
the convention was the ardor of his desire for Texas, 
became the nominee. As a cunning bid for northern 
consent to the taking in of Texas, the American claim 
to Oregon was coupled with it, in a resolution ^^^^^^ 
which demanded " the re-occupation of Oregon Oregon 
and the re-annexation of Texas at the earliest ■'■^**- 
practicable period." Both proposals were thus put in 
the light of being merely for the taking of what had 
formerly belonged to us ; and the phrase " re-annexation 
of Texas " imposed, without doubt, on many ignorant 
minds. It was founded on the theory that Texas be- 
longed by right to the Louisiana territory which we 
bought from France (see sect. 179) ; but it ignored the 
fact that we had abandoned that claim in our treaty of 
18 19 with Spain (see sect. 224). 

News of the doings of this Democratic convention, 
held at Baltimore, May 27-29, 1844, were girth of 
transmitted to Washington by the Morse sys- tei|g\aph^° 
tem of electric telegraphy, over a line that had ^®^* 
been opened only four days before, and which was the 
first ever built. 

Distinctly, the presidential election of 1844 turned 
upon the question of annexing Texas, and it seems to 



434 SECTIONAL CONTENTION. 

be certain that Clay would have won on that issue 
jjjay.g if he had kept himself firmly on the ground 

mistake. which he took at first. But he grew anxious 
about southern votes as the canvass went on, and wrote 
explanatory letters that showed a wavering state of 
min.d. The effect was to turn against him an anti- 
slavery vote sufficient to cause his defeat. Garrison 
and the extreme abolitionists never voted, taking no 
part in political action ; but other radicals in anti-slavery 

opinion had formed a '' Liberty party," which 
The Liberty , ^ , , . o r t 

party, had cast about 7000 votes in 1840 for James 

G. Birney, and which now named Birney for 
President again. The votes given to Birney, more than 
60,000 in all, were fatal to Clay. They decided the 
election in New York, and the 36 electoral votes of 
that State turned the scale in favor of Polk. 

Apparently, the jury of the people had decided that 
Texas, with her slaves and slave laws, should be taken 
into the Union, and that the weak and distracted repub- 
lic of Mexico should be defied. Both President and 
Congress took that meaning from the election, and 
were eager to accomplish the annexation before a new 
President and a new Congress could come in. They 
concluded that it could be done without treaty, by a 
joint resolution of Congress, and acted on that 

fPGXfl.3 

annexed, plan. The annexing resolution reached the 
President and was signed on the ist of March, 
1845 (see Map XV.). By its terms, four States, be- 
sides Texas proper, might thereafter be formed in the 
territory claimed by the annexed republic, and such 
States should be admitted to the Union with or without 
slavery, as they willed, if formed south of the Missouri 
Compromise line. What seemed to be a crowning tri- 
umph for the " slave power " had been won. 



EXPANSION TO THE PACIFIC. 435 

At nearly the same time, in an act passed March 3, 
1845, the admission of Florida to the Union, with a 
constitution that excluded free negroes and for- Florida and 
bade the legislature to legalize the emancipa- mmed!*" 
tion of slaves, was extorted as an equivalent 1845 i846. 
for the admission of Iowa into the list of free States.^ 

On the other hand, in the same session, John Quincy 
Adams won his long, heroic battle for the right of peti- 
tion, the House rescinding its unconstitutional rule. 

267. The Programme of President Polk. 1845. 
The cabinet of President Polk included three men of 
subsequent note : George Bancroft, the histo- poll's 
rian, who took the Navy Department ; Robert <^^^^"®*- 

J. Walker, in the Treasury'; and James Buchanan, Sec- 
retary of State. Mr. Schouler quotes a letter to himself 
from Mr. Bancroft, in which it is related that the new 
President, soon after entering office, said to the writer : 
"There are four great measures which are to be the 
measures of my administration : one, a reduction of 
the tariff ; another, the independent treasury ; a third, 
the settlement of the Oregon boundary question ; and, 
lastly, the acquisition of California." ^ That programme 
was exactly carried out, and the history of its execution 
is the history of the administration of President Polk. 

268. Settlement of the Oregon Boundary Dispute. 
1845-1846. The Oregon business was the first to be 
taken in hand. Calhoun, under Tyler, had opened it 
already, and Buchanan resumed the discussion, propos- 
ing the 49th parallel for a boundary line. This pro- 
posal was rejected, the British government regarding 

1 A boundary dispute with Missouri delayed the actual admis- 
sion of Iowa until December, 1846. 

^ Schouler, History of the United States^ iv. 498. 



43^ SECTIONAL CONTENTION. 

the Columbia River as the natural bound. The ques- 
tion went then to Congress, in December, 1845, with 
a recommendation that twelve months' notice of the 
abrogation of the convention for joint occupancy of 
Oregon be given, and with uncompromising assertions 
of our right to the whole region of dispute. The un- 
defined " Oregon " of that day was the country west of 
the Rocky Mountains, lying between the northern 
boundary of Mexico (which we had settled by our treaty 
The Oregon ^^ iSig with Spain as being the 42d degree of 
claim. north latitude — see sect. 224) and the south- 

ern boundary of Russian-American possessions, which 
both England and the United States had settled with 
Russia at the line of 54° 40'. We had a well-grounded 
claim to the whole drainage area of the Columbia River 
(see sect. 225) ; north of that there seems to have been 
no reason for disputing the British claims. Neverthe- 
less, the tone of the President's message and of the 
speeches that followed it in Congress revived a sense- 
less cry of " Fifty-four forty or fierht," which 

"Fifty-four -^ .■' ' "^ ? 

forty or the supporters of Polk had started in the presi- 
figiit." . . . 

dential campaign. Common sense prevailed in 

the end ; the 49th parallel was seen to be a reasonable 

line, and the British government found a cogent reason 

for accepting it, in the fact that American settlers were 

filling the valley of the Columbia, and were likely, soon 

or late, to make the country their own.^ On that basis 

1 The story told in many histories, that the measures of govern- 
ment and the movement of emigration which secured Oregon to 
the United States were consequent on the heroic undertakings of 
a missionary, the Rev. Marcus Whitman, who made a perilous 
journey across the continent, from the Columbia, in the winter 
of 1843, to rouse the country on the subject, has been discredited 
by some recent investigations. That the journey was heroically 



EXPANSION TO THE PACIFIC. 437 

the Oregon boundary question was settled peacefully and 
honorably, in June, 1846 (see Maps X. and XV.). 

269. War with Mexico. — Its Cause and Beginning. 
1845-1846. To take the revolted Texans into the 
American Union while Mexico claimed them as the sub- 
jects of her government was a challenge of war. In the 
legal sense, a state of war followed at once, the Mexican 
minister quitting Washington, and the Mexican gov- 
ernment refusing to receive an envoy from the United 
States ; while American troops were despatched to Texas 
and a naval squadron to the Gulf. Actual hostilities 
did not occur immediately because the challenged nation 
was in a disordered state ; and there would unjust 
have been no actual war if the annexation of uniSd"' 
Texas had involved nothing more than the s***®^- 
taking of the territory which the Texans occupied and 
from which Mexican authority had been expelled. That 
was the province of Texas, as organized and named 
under the Mexican administration ; the province within 
which the revolt had occurred, and outside of which it 
had made no change. That province extended southwest- 
ward along the Gulf from the Sabine River to the Nueces, 
beyond which stream the annexed " Republic of Texas " 
had no ground, either in past history or existing fact. 
But it claimed to the Rio Grande, and northward to the 
old Spanish bounds (see Map XV.) ; and it had assumed 
in the annexation treaty to convey that claim to the 

undertaken and performed, and that Mr. Whitman rendered im- 
portant services to a party of emigrants with whom he returned in 
1843, is unquestioned ; but it is shown that his visit east was for 
purposes connected v/ith his mission, and had no real connection 
with the stir of interest on the Oregon question. See Professor 
E. G. Bourne on " The Legend of Marcus Whitman," in The 
American Historical Review, January, 1901. 



43^^ SECTIONAL COXTEXTION. 

United States. What this meant was described in 
plain terms by Senator Benton, of IMissouri, an honest 
Benton's Statesman, who opposed Tyler's treaty when 
views. -^ went to the Senate in 1844. "The treaty," 
he said, " in all that relates to the boundary of the Rio 
Grande, is an act of unparalleled outrage on Mexico. 
It is the seizure of 2000 miles of her territory without 
a word of explanation to her, and by virtue of a treaty 
with Texas, to which she is no party. This slice of the 
republic of Mexico, 2000 miles long and some hundred 
broad, — all this our President has cut off from its 
mother empire and presents to us, and declares it is 
ours till the Senate rejects it. He calls it Texas ! and 
the cuttino- off he calls /r-annexation. Humboldt calls 
it New Mexico, Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Nuevo San 
Tander (now Tamaulipas), and the civilized world may 
qualifv this ;v-annexation by the application of some 
odious and terrible epithet."^ The ''unparalleled out- 
rage," as proposed in 1844, was condemned and rejected 
by the Senate ; but now, in 1845, that same '* slice of the 
republic of Mexico, 2000 miles long," was again called 
** Texas " by President Polk, and assumed to be acquired 
by the joint resolution which made Texas an American 
State. 

General Zachary Taylor, commanding the forces sent 
to Texas, was ordered by the President at the outset to 
cross the Nueces and take positicAn on its southwestern 
side. Mexico, torn by fresh revolutions, submitted to the 
invasion for six months ; but when, in January, 1846, 
Taylor was ordered to move on to the Rio Grande, 
and to plant his army where it threatened Matamoras, 
Mexican forces came over to oppose him ; an American 
reconnoitring party was attacked, and President Polk 
1 Benton, Thirty Years^ View^ ii. 601-602. 



EXPANSION TO THE PACIFIC. 4^9 

was giv^en the opportunity to say, in an inflammatory 
message to Congress : *' Mexico has passed the 
boundary of the United States, has invaded our Poirsln- 
territory, and shed American blood upon the message!*^ 
American soil." Thoughtless people every- 
where accepted the statement, and were fired with what 
passes for " patriotism " in shallow minds. War, once 
begun, found support in tliat kind of feeling, north as 
well as south ; though the iniquity of it was felt deeply 
by all that was best in the land. By the congressional 
elections of 1846 the party responsible for the war was 
reduced from a majority of 60 in the House of Repre- 
sentatives to a minority of 8. 

270. War with Mexico. — Campaigns and Con- 
quests. — Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. 1846-1848. 
On the 8th of INIay, 1846, a few days after the first col- 
lision on the Rio Grande, General Taylor, at Palo Alto, 
repelled an attack in strong force by the Mexicans, and 
retaliated the next day, striking the enemy at paioAito 
Resaca de la Palma and driving them back to SJfaPaLma* 
the southern side of the river. The following ^^^' ^^^^^ 
week he crossed with his own army, took INIatamoras, 
and waited to be reinforced. There was a pause then 
for some months, in this quarter, while volunteers were 
being raised and other military preparations made. 

In the interval. General Kearney was ordered to move 
from Fort Leavenworth into New Mexico, and thence 
to California, while Commodore Sloat, commanding our 
squadron in the Pacific, was to seize desirable 

1 i-. T r • At Seizure of 

pomts on the California coast. At the same caiiiornia, 
time orders went to Colonel John C. Fremont, 
who had been exploring the Rocky Mountain and Pacific 
coast regions for some years, directing him to assist in 
securing that northern California country which Polk 



440 



SECTIONAL CONTENTION. 



had marked for acquisition two years before. Fremont, 
Sloat, and Commodore Stockton, Sloat's successor, to- 
gether with a few hundred American settlers, practically 
took possession of the country before Kearney arrived. 




JUonterey 

iff • Saltillo.-j".!.. 
? g •. Buen'a.yistafcv 



FIELD OF GENERAL TAYLOR'S CAMPAIGN. 

The latter, meeting with no serious resistance, had 
occupied New Mexico, had established an American 
governor at Santa Fe, and had declared the province 
annexed to the United States. From Santa F6 General 
Kearney had sent part of his command, under Colonel 
„ Doniphan, southward, throuo^h Chihuahua, to a 

Monterey, . ^ ' o 

September junction With General Taylor, who advanced 
in September from Matamoras to Monterey, 
capturing that fortified city after obstinate fighting for 
four days (September 21-24). 

A new plan of campaign was now adopted, with Gen- 
eral Winfield Scott in chief command, and part of 
Taylor's army was called to assist Scott's movement on 
the city of Mexico from Vera Cruz. At this juncture 
Santa Anna, who had regained power in Mexico, took 
advantage of the weakening of Taylor and attempted to 



EXPANSION TO THE PACIFIC. 



441 



overwhelm his small force of 5200 men by an attack 
with 15,000. His attack (P'ebruary 23, 1847), ^^^j^^ 
made at Buena Vista, not far to the southwest February 
from Monterey, failed disastrously, costing him ^^' ■'•^*^- 
a loss of 2000 men. With this victory at Buena Vista 
the operations of General Taylor were closed. 

On the 7th of March, 1847, Scott's army of about 
12,000 reached Vera Cruz; on the 27th the city was 
surrendered to it ; a fortnight later its march veraCruz, 
to the Mexican capital, 200 miles distant, was ceS?^^' 
begun. The mountain pass of Cerro Gordo aptius, 
was forced on the i8th of April, and there ^^*^' 
was no more seri- 
ous fighting till 
the capital was 
nearly reached. 
At Puebla the in- 
vading army rest- 
ed during June 
and July, while 
unavailing peace 




SCOTT'S ROUTE FROM VERA CRUZ TO MEXICO. 



negotiations were 

carried on. Early in August the march was 
and the defences of the city, held by about 
30,000 men, were reached on the i8th. On 
the 19th the assault began, and three battles, 
Contreras, San Antonio, and Cherubusco, were 
fought that day and the next. Then another 
parley suspended the war for a few days. It 
was resumed on the 8th of September, in suc- 
cessful assaults on Mexican positions at Casa 
Mata and Molino del Rey. On the 13th the 
strong fortress of Chapultepec was stormed, 
its defenders were driven into the city, and 



resumed, 

Contreras, 
San An- 
tonio, 

Cherubusco, 
August 19- 
20, 1847. 

fruitless 



Casa Mata, 
MoUno del 
Rey, Cha- 
pultepec, 
Mexico, 
September 
8-16, 1847. 

the city 



442 SECTIONAL CONTENTION. 

itself was then taken after three days of desperate fight- 
ing in the streets. The Mexicans had made an heroic 
defence ; they were vanquished by qualities in the 
smaller American army which we can justly be proud 
of, even though we cannot feel satisfied with the occa- 
sion that called such qualities forth. 

Notwithstanding the loss of their capital city, the Mex- 
icans were not submissive until January, 1848, when 
they opened negotiations with Mr. Trist, a commissioner 
from President Polk who had power to treat for peace. 
On the 2d of February a treaty was signed at 

Treaty of ... 

Guadalupe Guadalupe Hidalgo, by which Mexico relin- 
February quished all claim to Texas, established the Rio 

2 1848 

Grande as the southwestern boundary of that 
State, and ceded to the United States the great terri- 
tory then called New Mexico and California, which 
included Nevada and Utah, parts of Colorado, Wyo- 
ming, and Arizona, as well as the California and New 
Mexico that are so named at the present time (see Map 
XV.). For this cession the sum of ^15,000,000 was paid 
to Mexico, and claims of Americans against that repub- 
lic to the amount of $3,250,000 were assumed, making 
the transaction a compulsory sale. Five years later, by 
what is known as the Gadsden Purchase, the remainder 
of Arizona, south of the Gila River, was bought for 
$10,000,000 (see Map XV.). 

271. Mormon Migration to Utah. — Gold Discovery 
in California. — Rising tide of Foreign Immigration. 
1846-1849. Before the treaty with Mexico was signed, 
and, therefore, before either Utah or California had be- 
come part of the United States, events had prepared 
for the speedy settlement of both. The religious com- 
munity calling itself the "Church of the Latter Day 
Saints," but known commonly as that of the Mormons, 



EXPANSION TO THE PACIFIC. 443 

first formed by Joseph Smith at Palmyra, New York, in 
1830, but removed to successive settlements, in 

y^i • /^ v- -Kir- • / n, n\ 1 • TIT • Eaily sottle- 

Ohio (183 1), m Missouri (1838), and in Illinois mentsoi 

/«vi. 1 ^ ' ^ c • Mormons. 

(1840), was driven by mob violence irom its 
town of Nauvoo, Illinois, in the spring of 1846. It 
migrated westward, across the desert plains and beyond 
the mountains, to the number of 17,000 souls. Smith, 
the apostle of these people, had been killed by the 
Illinois mob, and the new head of their church was Brig- 
ham Youne:. Youne: led them to the Utah valley 
of the Great Salt Lake, which was reached by saitLake, 

, •' 1847. 

the vanguard of their movement in the sum- 
mer of 1847. They prospered in their distant settlement, 
and large bodies of converts were drawn into union 
with them there. 

The event that drew a still larger population and with 
more rapidity into northern California was the discovery 
of erold, which occurred, near the site of the 

. - ~ ... r Discovery 

present city of Sacramento, in the winter or of gold, 
1848. The discovery was followed by a pro- 
digious rush of gold-seekers from every part of the 
world. 

These special movements of population were coinci- 
dent, too, with the beginning of an enormous increase 
of general immigration from Europe to the increased 
United States, caused, first, by a failure of the {SSJ^^^^" 
potato crop and a consequent fearful famine in i845-i848. 
Ireland, during the years 1845-46-47, and afterward by 
political disturbances in Germany and elsewhere, in 
1848. That movement of immigration did not end with 
the ending of its immediate causes, but has continued 
ever since, transferring somewhat more, on an average, 
than a quarter of a million of people yearly from other 
countries to ours. 



444 SECTIONAL COXTEXTION. 

272. Independent Treasury restored. — The Walker 
Taritf. 1846. Oi the four measures planned by Presi- 
dent Polk when he entered office we have traced the 
success of two : the settlement of the Oregon boundary 
and the acquisition of California. The remaining two 
were accomplished in 1846, when Van Buren's independ- 
ent treasury was reestablished, and a new tariff law, 
described in purpose as being " a tariff for revenue with 
incidental protection," and known as "the Walker Tar- 
iff." was passed. 

273. The Question of Slavery in the Territories. — 
Intensified Feeling. — The Wilmot Proviso. 1846- 
1848. The vast addition now made to the national 
domain, by the Oregon treaty and by the results of the 

Mexican War, raised the question concerning 
anti- slaverv in the Territories to an importance so 

slavery ' ,...,,. 

feeling in momentous — so manitestlv vital — that it went 

the nortli. ' 

to depths of feeling in the country which no- 
thing had touched before. Churches were divided upon 
it, sectionally, and the old political parties were breaking 
up. Great numbers of northern people, who had acted 
more or less in alliance with the slaveholding interest 
hitherto, went into t*lie anti-slavery ranks. 

In August, 1846, the question arose in Congress on 
two measures, almost simultaneously, and was raised in 
each instance by Democratic representatives from the 
north. In the first instance, on a bill to organize the 
Territory of Oregon, Mr. Thompson, of Pennsylvania, 
moved an amendment excluding slavery, and the amend- 
ment was adopted by a large majority of the House; 
but the Senate stifled the bill. In the second instance, 
on a bill to appropriate money for the negotiations with 
Mexico, then in progress, ]\Ir. Wilmot, of Pennsylvania, 
moved and carried a similar proviso, that slavery should 



EXPANSION TO THE PACIFIC. 445 

exist in no territory acquired by treaty from Mexico ; 
and that, too, caused the bill to fail in the Sen- ,j,^q 
ate, after it had passed the House. At the next pi5^\^°M 
session of Congress, the ''Wilmot Proviso" i846-i847. 
was asrain attached by the House to a bill relatino- to 
the conquests from Mexico, and again rejected by the 
Senate ; and again the latter body refused a territorial 
organization to Oregon if slavery was to be shut out. 
In 1848, however, after weeks of raging debate, the 
demand for a civil government in Oregon became so 
urgent that the Senate gave way, and passed a bill that 
contained the excluding clause (see Map XIV.). But 
nothing could be done to protect the great region called 
New Mexico and California from invasion by the slave- 
holder with his slaves. 

274. The New Theory of Slaveholding Rights in 
the Territories. 1847. The '' slave power " and its par- 
tisans had advanced now to a new constitutional theory 
on the subject, contending that the general government 
had no power to exclude from the Territories anything 
that was recognized as ''property" by the laws of any 
State. Hence, they claimed, the owners of slaves, which 
were ''property" under the laws of half the States, 
could not be barred from taking them into any part of 
that domain which belongs in common to all the States. 
When the settlers of a Territory acquired the " sover- 
ei2:ntv " of a state orsranization, then thev might exclude 
slavery by their laws, if they willed ; but no legislative 
body had power to do so in advance of that time. This 
theory, put forward in 1847 by Mr. Rhett, of South 
Carolina, in the House, and by Calhoun and Jefferson 
Davis in the Senate, was entirely new. The right of 
Congress to deal with slavery in the Territories had been 
established in practice for half a century, — particularly 



44^ SECTIONAL CONTENTION. 

established by the Missouri Compromise, as well as by 
the confirmation of the Ordinance of 1787 (see sects. 
151 and 227). To annul that long admitted right, and 
to open every Territory to slavery, now grew to be a 
fixed determination in the south, while the opposing 
determination grew as steadily at the north. 

TOPICS AND SUGGESTED READING AND RESEARCH. 

262. Death of President Harrison. — Vice-President 
Tyler as President. — His Rupture with the Whigs. 

Topics and References. 

I. Mr. Tyler's false position when made President. 2. Whig 
measures that he approved. 3. Default and repudiation in certain 
States. 4. The President's bank-bill vetoes. 5. Whig hostility. 
— Resignation of the cabinet, except Webster. Schurz, Clayy 
ii. 198-219; Schouler, iv. 367-396; Wilson, J>hnsion, 133-139; 
Hoist, United States, ii. 412-450; Clay, vi. 274-296; Benton, ii. 
ch. xliii.-xliv., Lxi., Lxiii.-lxv., Ixviii., Ixxix.-lxxxv. ; Sargent, ii. 
122-136. 

263. " Dorr Rebellion " in Rhode Island. — Anti-Rent 

Disturbances in New York. 

Topics and References. 

1. Cause and result of the '• Dorr Rebellion." G. W. Greene, 
Rhode Island, ch. xxxi. 

2. Origin of the anti-rent disturbances in New York. Schuyler, 
i. 243-::S5. 

264. The Ashburton Treaty. 

Topics and References. 

I. The treaty (text in MacDonald, ii. 335-343)- — Its main sub 

ject. 2. Other matters included in it. Lodge, Webster^ 252- 

260 ; Schouler, iv. 396-404 ; Webster, vi. 270-3QO ; Benton, ii. ch. 

ci.-cvi. 

Research. — The map questions connected with the treaty. Web- 
ster, ii. 143-153. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 44/ 

265. Texas Annexation Treaty rejected by the 

Senate. 

Topics and References. 

1. Action of President Tyler in securing the treaty. 2. Grounds 
of objection to it. 3. Objects of the annexation, in the interest of 
slavery. Hoist, Calhoun, 222-245 ; Hoist, United States, ii. Cx)2- 
657, 673-677 ; Schouler, iv. 440-451, 457-459, 470 ; Burgess, Mid- 
dle Period, 302-30S ; Wilson, Vii'ision, 144-145 ; Schurz, Cla/, ii. 
235-241 ; Benton, ii. ch. cxxxv., cxxxviii.-cxlii. 

266. The Texas Question and the Presidential 
Election. — Annexation accomplished. 

Topics and References. 

I. Clay nominated in opposition to the annexation, against Polk, 
its advocate. 2. Oregon claims coupled with the Texas question. 
— The false coloring of both. Wilson, Division, 145-146 ; Schouler, 
iv. 460-461, 465-469, 471-474; Hoist, United States, ii. 657-673; 
Shepard, 344-354 ; Johnston, A)n. Politics, 145-146; Hart, Con- 
temp's, iii. 649-652. 

3. First practical use at this time of the electric telegraph. Sar- 
gent, ii. 231-232 ; Benton, ii. ch. cxxxiii.; Schouler, iv. 469. 

4. Why and how Clay lost the election. — The Liberty party. 
Schurz, Clay, ii. 241-265; Schouler, iv. 474-4S0 ; Hart, Contempts, 
iii. 646-649 ; Johnston, Am. Politics, 146-147. 

5. Hurried action of President and Congress to accomplish the 
annexation (text in MacDonald, ii. 343-346). Hoist, United States, 
ii. 677-712 ; Hoist, Calhoun, 251-256 ; Burgess, Middle Period, 
308-310, 318-323 ; Schouler, iv. 482-488 ; Benton, ii. ch. cxlvii.- 
cxlviii. 

6. Admission of Florida and Iowa. Schouler, iv. 4S8-489. 

7. The triumph of John Quincy Adams. Sargent, ii. 254-257 ; 
Hoist, United States, ii. 541-543 ; Schouler, iv. 480-481. 
Research. — The grief of the Whigs over the defeat of Henry 

Clay. Schurz, Clay, ii. 265-267 ; Sargent, ii. 232-254. 

267. The Programme of President Polk. 

Topics and References. 

I. The cabinet of President Polk. 2. The four measures planned 
by President Polk. Schouler, iv. 495-500. 



44S EXPANSION TO THE PACIFIC. 

268. Settlement of the Oregon Boundary Dispute. 

Topics and References. 

I. The undefined region of the dispute. 2. Senselessness of 
the cn% ** Fifty-four forty or fight." 3. The reasonable settlement 
made (text in McDonald, ii. 355-35S). Burgess. MUJU- Period. 
311-317. 324-326; Hoist, Calhoun, 261-272; Schouler. iv. 504- 
514: Wilson. Division, 147-14^ ; Benton, ii. ch. clvi.-clix. 

269. War with Mexico. — Its Cause and Beginning. 

Topics and References. 

I. Annexation of Texas proper would not have caused war. 
2. War the consequence of our claiming what had never belonged 
to Texas. 3. Senator Benton's characterization of the transaction. 
Benton, ii. ch. cxlix.; Hart, Contemp's. iii. 652-655; Schouler, iv. 
51S-525 ; Hoist. United States, iii. ch. iv.. vii.; Hoist, Calhoun, 
274-279; Grant, i. 33-34 ; Webster, v. 253-261, 271-301; Burgess, 
^ fiddle Period, 327-331. 

4. Collision provoked on the Rio Grande. — Inflammatory mes- 
sage of President Polk (text in MacDonald, ii. 34^^-353' Hart. 
Contemp's, iv. 20-23). Schouler, iv. 525-52S : Xicolay and Hay, 
i. 270-273; Lincoln, i. 100-107. 

Research. — i. The character of Thomas H. Benton. Roosevelt. 
Benton. 2. Lowell on the Mexican Wai\ in the " Biglow 
Papers." 

270. War with Mexico. — Campaigns and Conquests. 

— Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. 

Topics and References. 

I. Opening of General Taylor's campaign. 2. General Kear- 
nev's easv conquest of New Mexico. — Seizure of California. 3. 
Taylor at Monterey. Grant, i. ch. vii.-viii. : Schouler, iv. 52S-535 ; 
Hoist, United States, iii. 258-26S ; Benton, ii. ch. clxii.-clxiv.: H. 
H. Bancroft, xvii. ch. i.-xvi. 

4. Tavlor's victorv at Buena \'ista. 5. General Scott's cam- 
paign. — Capture of the city of Mexico. Paris, i. ch. iv. : Grant, i. 
ch. ix.-xii.; Hart. Contempts, iv. 2S-31; Hoist. United States, iii. 
331-335; Wilson, Division, 151-152: H. H. Bancroft, xvii. ch. xiii. 

6. Cessions to the United States by the treaty of Guadalupe 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 449 

Hidalgo (text in MacDonald, ii. 365-372). Hoist, United States^ 
iii. 344-347; Wilson, Division, 152-153. 

7. The "Gadsden Purchase " (text in MacDonald, ii. 390-395), 

271. Mormon Migration to Utah. — Gold Discovery 
in California. — Rising Tide of Foreign Immigration. 

Topics and References. 

1. Origin of the Mormon Church. — Its successive migrations, 
and settlement in Utah. Schouler, iv. 546-549. 

2. Gold discovery in California. Sherman, i. 68-82 ; H. H. 
Bancroft, xviii. ch. ii.-iv. 

3. Causes of increased immigration from Europe. Wilson, 
Dii < is ion , 1 62- 1 64. 

272. The Independent Treasury restored. — The 

Walker Tariff. 

Topics and References. 

I. The four measures of President Polk accomplished (text of 
treasury act in MacDonald, ii. 358-365). Schouler, iv. 514-518; 
Wilson, Division^ 154-155. 

273. The Question of Slavery in the Territories. — 
The " ^Wilmot Proviso." 

Topics and References. 

I. Shall the new domain be for slave labor or free labor? — 
Intensified feeling in the country. 2. The question in Congress 
concerning Oregon. 3. The question concerning New Mexico 
and California. — The " Wilmot Proviso." Shepard, 354-357; 
Hoist, United States, iii. 284-308, 322-327, 348-358, 385-397, 
400-401; Hoist, Calhoun, 279-285; Burgess, Middle Period, 2,2^^- 
337, 340-344; Wilson, Division, 153-157 ; Schouler, iv. 543-546; 
Hart, ConteniP's, iv. 35-40. 

274. New Theory of Slaveholding Rights in the 

Territories. 

Topics and References. 

I. The new constitutional theory of the " slave power." 2. The 
ground of conflict changed. Hoist, United States, iii. 308-320 ; 
Hoist, Calhoun, 292-307, 310-313; Burgess, Middle Period, 342- 
344 ; Benton, ii. ch. clxvii.-clxviii., clxxiy. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE MADDENING SLAVERY QUESTION. 1848-1860. 

275. Presidential Canvass of 1848. — Election of 
Taylor and Fillmore. The question between the " Wil- 
mot Proviso " and the new claim of slaveholding rights 
in the Territories — the question, that is, between lim- 
iting and spreading slavery — was the one subject of 
absorbing interest in the country when the presidential 
election of 1848 approached; yet the politicians of the 
old parties made blind attempts to keep it out of the 
canvass, by taking no ground on either side. Large 
numbers, in consequence, broke away from them in the 
north, and combined, Whigs and Democrats, under the 
name of *' Free Soilers," in a new anti-slavery 

"Free ^ 

Soilers," movement, led by friends and followers of Van 

1848. 

Buren, in New York. The New York Demo- 
crats in this movement had undertaken to array their 
own party against further extensions of slavery, and had 
failed. Among their leaders were such men as Silas 
Wright, Samuel J. Tilden, Dean Richmond, William Cul- 
"Bam- ^^^ Bryant, and John A. Dix. They accepted 
anr^Hunk- ^^^ queer name of ** Barnburners," because their 
"*"" opponents (whom they styled *' Hunkers," or 

"old fogies ") accused them of acting like a farmer who 
burned his barn to rid it of rats. 

The Democratic national convention nominated Lewis 
Cass, of Michigan, for President ; the Whig convention 
named General Zachary Taylor, one of the heroes of 



THE MADDENING SLAVERY QUESTION. 451 

the Mexican War. The former convention issued some 
meaningless phrases on political questions, while the 
latter said nothing at all. The Barnburner Democrats, 
refusing to support Cass, put Van Buren in nomination, 
and their action was endorsed by a great convention at 
Buffalo, where Whigs, Democrats, and Abolitionists 
united in declaring for "free soil, free speech, free labor, 
and free men." 

The nomination of Van Buren was not satisfactory to 
the general body of anti-slavery Whigs in New York, and 
most of them were persuaded to vote for General Tay- 
lor, the Whig nominee. Van Buren, in consequence, by 
drawing heavily from the Democratic vote in New York 
and little from the Whig vote, turned the election in 
Taylor's favor. The Vice-President elected was Millard 
Fillmore, of New York. 

276. Pro-slavery and Anti-slavery Demands. 1849. 
When President Taylor entered office, in the spring of 
1849, th^ ^'ush of gold-seekers to California was 
deciding the slavery question there, by filling gom-hunt- 
the country with a population that had no use or slavery, 
desire for slaves. Prompted by the President, 
who had no sectional views on the subject of slavery, 
though a slaveholder himself, the Californians framed and 
adopted a free-state constitution, established a govern- 
ment, and applied for admission to the Union. The Mor- 
mons of Utah were organized politically already, in what 
they named the " State of Deseret," and the few inhabit- 
ants of New Mexico were taking steps to the same end. In 
the President's view the whole problem would solve itself, 
if Congress would let events take their natural course ; 
but his proceedings and proposals in the matter were 
resented by the extremists of the south, whose prominent 
leaders were Jefferson Davis and Robert Barnwall Rhett. 



452 SECTIONAL CONTENTION. 

Nobody could think it possible to force slavery on the 
people who were gathering in California, nor to keep the 
increasing thousands of those people with no organized 
government for an indefinite period of time ; but the 
California question furnished an opportunity for press- 
pro-siavery ^^"'o Other pro-slavery demands, and to press 
demands, them in a threatening way. There were (i) the 
demand for opening the whole remainder of the terri- 
tory lately Mexican to slavery ; (2) for the surrender of 
a large part of New Mexico to Texas, on her boundary 
claims ; (3) for fresh legislation to carry out that provi- 
sion of the Constitution which declares that persons 
" held to service or labor in one State, under the laws 
thereof, escaping into another, . . . shall be delivered 
up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor 
may be due." ^ For the execution of this mandate of the 
Constitution a "fugitive slave law" had been 

slave law amons: the Federal statutes since 1703 ; but that 
of 1793. , ^ , , . ' ^^ ^ . , 

law entrusted the execution to state omcials, 

who might be (according to a decision of the Supreme 
Court), and who were, forbidden by the laws of some 
States to perform the duties required. Therefore it was 
demanded, on indisputable grounds of constitutional ob- 
ligation, that Congress should enact a more effective law, 
appointing Federal officials to carry it out. 

Against these radical pro-slavery demands from one 
section came the radical anti-slavery demands from the 
other, (i) for the Wilmot Proviso, applied to all 
slavery present and future Territories ; (2) for the aboli- 
tion of slavery in the District of Columbia ; (3) 
for the prohibition of all slave trade between the States. 
The feeling on each side took heat from the other, and 
conditions were well prepared for an outburst of flame. 
1 Art. IV. sect. ii. clause 3. 



THE MADDENING SLAVERY QUESTION. 453 

277. Compromise of 1850. — Death of President 
Taylor. — Accession of President Fillmore. President 
Taylor, stout-hearted old soldier and patriot, regarded 
the threatening situation without dismay. Like Jackson, 
his feelings were wholly national ; he scorned the sec- 
tional spirit, and was sternly unwilling to give way to it 
in the least. If he had had his way, the crisis reached a 
dozen years later might have come upon the country in 
1850 or 1 85 1, and possibly with a different result. But 
the temper of Congress was not so inflexible. Clay, "the 
great compromiser," brought his peculiar influ- 
ence to bear on the strained feeling of the time, compro- 
and postponed the inevitable rupture by a last 
transient truce. Under his lead a conservative majority 
from both parties in Congress enacted a series of mea- 
sures which were judged to be an acceptable *' compro- 
mise " between the pro-slavery and anti-slavery demands. 
Webster, Cass, and Stephen A. Douglas were the promi- 
nent northern supporters of Clay in his undertaking ; his 
scheme as a whole was opposed on one side by Jefferson 
Davis, and on the other side by Seward and most of the 
anti-slavery Whigs. The influence of the admin- 
istration was against it until President Taylor's President 
death, which occurred, after a brief illness, on July 9,' 
the 9th of July, 1850. Mr. Fillmore, who be- 
came President then, approved all the pending compro- 
mise bills, and signed them when they passed. 

Nothing else in the compromise proceeding gave rise 
to so much feeling as Webster's participation in it. His 
speech in the Senate debate, which brought the Webster's 
weightiest argument and the most powerful in- of Marci^ 
fluence to Clay's support, grieved and angered speech." 
a vast number of his old admirers in the north. It was 
looked upon, most unreasonably, as a bid for the presi- 



454 SECTIONAL CONTENTION. 

dency ; as though the south could make him President 
without the good-will that he alienated in the north. 
Opinion at the present day does more justice to Web- 
ster's sincerity, whatever may be its judgment on the 
wisdom of his course. He feared for the Union, and he 
convinced himself that nature had forbidden slavery in 
New IMexico and Utah, which time proved to be the fact. 
In his grand way he said : " I would not take pains use- 
lessly to reaffirm an ordinance of nature, nor to reenact 
the will of God." As for the Fugitive Slave Law, he 
advocated jury trial for the fugitive, but he did not insist 
upon it, and he left the Senate, to become Secretary of 
State in Fillmore's cabinet, before the bill came to a 
vote. 

The five measures of the ** Compromise of 1S50 " (i) es- 
tablished territorial governments in Utah and New Mex- 
The five ^*^*^' "^^'^^^"^ ^^^ reference to slavery ; (2) admitted 
measures. California as a free State ; (3) gave S 10,000,000 
to Texas for her New Mexico claim ; (4) substituted a new 
Fugitive Slave Law for that of 1793 ; and (5) abolished 
the slave trade, but not slavery, in the District of Colum- 
bia. The several acts were passed by differing votes, 
the radicals on the two sides voting together against the 
Texas proposition, and opposedly on everything else. In 
reality, the so-called *' compromise " satisfied only a mid- 
dle feeling of cool conservatism in the country, that was 
peaceable enough without it ; while the dangerous an- 
tagonisms were not pacified at all. 

- 278. The Fugitive Slave Law. 1850. The antago- 
nisms were not only not pacified, but they were intensi- 
fied by one of the measures of the "compromise " — the 
Fugitive Slave Law. Had that law done no more than 
fulfil in a strict way the hard requirement of the Consti- 
tution, nobody who upholds the Constitution could deny 



THE MADDENING SLAVERY QUESTION. 455 

that it was a rightful act. But it destroyed all the 
safeiiuards of freedom for every black man in 

"" " . Salegnards 

every State. If a white man clamied him as a of freedom 

, . ... destroyed. 

slave, It was not the white man who must prove 
his cLaim by more than a bare affidavit, but the negro 
who must prove his right to be free. He was denied 
even the safeguards of a thief, whom the law assumes 
to be innocent till his guilt is proved. He could not 
testify in his own behalf. He was denied trial by jury. 
He was denied a judge of the bench ; for the claim 
against his liberty was to be heard and determined, " in 
a summary manner," by a fee-paid commissioner, whom 
the law bribed against him, by making the official fee 
ten dollars if the black man was sent to slavery and 
five dollars if he was set free. 

Such a law could not be enforced in northern commu- 
nities without excitements of passionate feeling. Every 
case that occurred under it — every surrender of a 
claimed fugitive — did more than the abolitionists had 
ever done to convert northern people to some part, at 
least, of abolitionist beliefs. Senator Seward, The appeal 
in a Senate debate on the compromise mea- {Jghtr 
sures, had made casual allusion to " a higher ^^^'" 
law than the Constitution."" and the phrase was caught 
up. To obstruct, resist, frustrate, the execution of the 
statute came to be looked upon by many people as a duty 
dictated by the ''higher law" of moral right. Legis- 
latures were moved to enact obstructive ** personal liberty 
laws ; " and quiet citizens were moved to riotous acts. 
Active undertakings to encourage and assist the escape 
of slaves from southern States were set on foot, .phe 
and a remarkable organization of helping hands g^Sn"' 
was formed, in what took the name of the R^^*y-" 
" Underground Railway," to secrete them and pass them 



45^ SECTIONAL CONTENTION. 

on to the safe shelter of Canadian law. The slaveholders 
lost thousands of their servants for every one that the 
law restored to their hands. 

The story of " Uncle Tom's Cabin," by Mrs. Harriet 
Beecher Stowe, may fairly be counted among the pro- 
ducts of the Fuo^itive Slave Law, and no other 
" Uncle ^ . 

Tom's book ever produced an extraordinary effect so 

Cabin." . ^ ^ 

quickly on the public mind. In book form it 
was published in March, 1852, and it was read every- 
where in civilized countries within the next two or three 
years. Its picture of slavery was stamped ineffaceably 
on the thought of the whole world, and the institution 
was arraigned upon it, for a more impressive judgment 
than Christendom had ever pronounced before. That 
the picture was not a true one of the general and com- 
mon circumstances of southern slavery, but that the inci- 
dents put together in the story were all possible, has 
been proved beyond doubt. 

279. Incidents of the Period. 1849-1852. In polit- 
ical affairs the domestic history of the United States, 
during the four years of Taylor and Fillmore, was filled 
almost entirely with the agitations to which slavery gave 
Material ^^^^' ^^ "^"^^ ^ time of great material prosperity 
prosperity. ^^^ advance. Railroad and telegraph building 
went on with rapidity ; movements of travel and trade 
were enormously increased ; steamers were supplanting 
sailing vessels on the ocean, as well as on rivers and lakes ; 
large organizations of every kind of undertaking, in reform 
work, lecture-touring, news-collecting, and the like, were 
becoming practicable; life on all sides was broadened and 
quickened, and the nation was acquiring a new know- 
ledge of itself. 

Several occurrences of interest or excitement had their 
origin in foreign affairs. In 1850 Mr. Clayton, then 



THE MADDENING SLAVERY QUESTION. 457 

Secretary of State, negotiated what seemed to be a treaty 
of importance with the British minister, Sir oiayton- 
Henry Lytton Bulwer, to guarantee the neu- §Jeat" 
traUty of any ship canal that might be cut ^®^°" 
through the Isthmus of Panama, or through Central 
America at any other point. But many years were to 
pass, and the Clayton-Bulwer treaty was to give way to 
another, before the long-projected inter-oceanic canal 
could be built. 

Results of more importance came from a naval expe- 
dition sent to Japan in 1 8 [52, under Commodore 

T^ ^ ^ ^ ■ •• ^ n Expedition 

Perry, who succeeded in negotiating the first to Japan, 
treaty by which the Japanese government con- 
ceded rights and privileges of intercourse and commerce 
with any foreign people. 

The rising of 1848-49 in Hungary, against Austrian 
misrule, gave rise to two incidents of note. The first 
was a spirited correspondence between Chevalier Hulse- 
mann, the Austrian representative at Washing- ^j^^ 
ton, and Mr. Webster, after the latter became SumT"^ 
Secretary of State. Austria was offended by ^^^^' 
action taken in sending an agent to Hungary to watch 
the course of events, and Webster delighted his country- 
men by the vigor of his reply to her complaints. The 

second incident was a visit to America, in 1851, 

visit ol 
by Kossuth, the wonderfully eloquent Hunga- Kossuth, 

rian leader, who hoped to renew the struggle 
of his country with American help. He excited an en- 
thusiasm which might have swept the United States 
into reckless meddling with European affairs, if those 
who were responsible for the government had allowed 
themselves to be moved by the momentary feeling of 
the people. 

Since the annexation of Texas and the conquests from 



458 SECTIONAL CONTENTION. 

Mexico, a restless craving for more territorial expansion 
had been showing itself in parts of the south. Cuba 
was a special object of desire. President Polk had tried 
without success to buy the island from Spain, and less 
scrupulous undertakings were then set on foot. President 
Taylor suppressed one filibustering scheme in 

Lopoz 

Expedition, 1 849. Another, concocted in 185 1 by a Cuban 
named Lopez, launched an expedition of about 
500 men from New Orleans and landed it in Cuba, where 
it suffered quick defeat. The leader and some others 
\vere executed, and a large part of the force perished in 
fight or from disease. 

280. Presidential Canvass of 1852. Election of 
Franklin Pierce. If the Compromise of 1S50 gave sat- 
isfaction, as was said above, to nothing but a middle feel- 
ing of cool conservatism in the country, that feeling 
must have been predominant, even after two years of 
a vigorous enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law ; for 
the anti-slavery sentiment of the north showed less vigor 
Apathy ^^ ^^^ presidential election of 1852 than four 
slavery years before. The attempt in 1848 to unite 
forces. anti-slavery Whigs and Democrats in a common 
defence of " free soil " had had a discouraging result. 
Most of the Whigs had drawn away from it at the 
beginning, and now Van Buren and the majority of his 
followers were back within their old party lines. 

Both parties, in the national conventions of 1852, 
pledged themselves to maintain the compromise measures 
-and to resist agitations on the subject of slavery ; but the 
Democratic party gave evidence of more heartiness in 
the pledge than the Whigs could show. Anti-slavery 
influences in the latter were strong enough to defeat 
Fillmore, the candidate of the southern Whigs, as well 
as Webster, who had a faithful following, and to make 



THE MADDENING SLAVERY QUESTION. 459 

another military nomination, in the person of General 
Scott. For the Democratic nomination, Cass, gg^^^ 
Buchanan, and Douglas were rivals who de- pferce,* 
feated one another, and the prize went to Frank- •'•®^^" 
lin Pierce, of New Hampshire, a pleasing gentleman, much 
liked by those who knew him, and one whose political 
views were highly satisfactory to the south. That was his 
strength, and the strength of his party. The time had 
come in American politics when the fighting for or against 
slavery was the only hearty fighting that could be done. 
The Democratic party gained strength from the firmness 
of its footing on the southern side ; while the Whig party, 
going positively to neither side, was weakened on both, 
and came to the end of its career. A surviving remnant 
of the Free Soil party nominated John P. Hale. Pierce 
was elected by an overwhelming majority of votes. 

Both Webster and Clay died while the strife for the 
presidency went on, the former in October, the latter in 
June. 

281. Minor Incidents of the Administration of Pre- 
sident Pierce. 1853-1854. One event of ^the period of 
President Pierce looms so large that all others seem in- 
significant; but some incidents of importance occurred, 
which may be mentioned first. Once more Austria raised 
a question with the* American government, by attempting, 
in Turkey, to lay hands on a Hungarian refugee, Martin 
Koszta, who had resided in America since ^^e 
his escape from Hungary, and had declared his fifafrf 
intention to become a citizen of the United ^®^^" 
States. Captain Ingraham, of the United States sloop-of- 
war St. Louis, forced an Austrian brig-of-war to give 
him up, and the captain's action was upheld. Mr. Marcy, 
Pierce's Secretary of State, justified the proceeding on 
principles from which this country is not likely to recede. 



460 SECTIONAL CONTENTION. 

Another important performance in the State Depart- 
ment was the negotiation of a treaty of reciprocity ^^ith 
Canada, opening the markets of each country to most of 
Canadian ^^^ natural products of the other, free of duty, 
tSaty°'^^^ and increasing the privileges of American fish- 
^®^* errnen on the British-American coast. The 

treaty was ratified in 1S54, and was in force until 1S66, 
when it was abrogated by action of the United States. 

With less credit to itself, the administration of Presi- 
dent Pierce was tolerant, at least, of unscrupulous designs 
Walker In ^'^pon Cuba, and winked at the doings of one 
mc^agua. \v-:iiker, who harassed Nicaragua with tilibus- 
^^®°" tering undertakings for a number of years. It 

prompted also a strange proceeding on the part of three 
American plenipotentiaries in Europe, Mr. Soule, Mr. 
Buchanan, and ]\Ir. ^lason, who met at Ostend, in Oc- 
tober, 1S54, and joined in preparing an extraordinary 
document, kno^^•n as "the Ostend Manifesto." 
Maniiesto, In substance this ad\*ised the immediate ac- 

1854- 

quisition of Cuba, by purchase if possible, by 
force if need;ril, on the gTOund that the peace and safety 
of the United States required the island to be ours. If, 
as people believed at the time, the government was mak- 
ing ready to act on such advice, its plans were interfered 
with by another measure, which raised so much excite- 
ment in the country that nothing else could be taken in 

hand. 

282. Repeal of the Missouri Compromise by tiie 

Kansas-Nebraska Act. 1854.^ That measure was one 

repealing the Missouri Compromise, thereby admitting 

slaver)' to the whole domain from which the compact of 

1S20 (see sect. 227) had shut it out. In Januar)-, 1S54, 

its author, Senator Douglas, of Illinois, reported from 

1 See Map XIV. 



THE MADDENING SLAVERY QUESTION. 461 

the Senate Committee on Territories a bill to organize 
what was then called the Territory of Nebraska, embrac- 
ing what is now comprised in the States of Kansas, Ne- 
braska, the Dakotas, and so much of Montana, Wyoming, 
and Colorado as lies on the eastern side of the Rocky 
Mountains (see Map XL). The report assumed, what 
seems to have entered no mind before, that the effect of 
the Compromise of 1S50, in its provision relating to New 
Mexico and Utah, was to establish the principle Do^^rtjig ^^ 
of "popular sovereignty," or ''squatter sover- "sauatter 
eignty," as Calhoun had styled it, with con- ^s^^-" 
tempt ; the principle, that is, ** that all questions per- 
taining to slavery in the Territories, and the new States 
to be formed therefrom, are to be left to the decision 
of the people residing therein." Pursuant to this dis- 
cover}', the Nebraska Bill reported by Senator Douglas 
pro\'ided that States org-anized in the Territory should 
be '* received into the Union with or without slavers', 
as their constitutions may prescribe." Subsequently a 
clause was added that repealed the enactment of 1S20 in 
positive terms, and two Territories, named Kansas and 
Nebraska, were created in the region, instead of one. 

After three months of an excitement which exceeded 
all pre\-ious agitations, the Kansas-Nebraska Bill became 
law. It \\-as opposed by every northern Whig in both 
branches of Congress, and by nearly half the northern 
Democrats in the lower House. In the Senate, Douc^las 
carried with him all but four of his Democratic colleagues 
from the north. The political effect of the bill 
was to drive great numbers from the Demo- norUiJra°^^ 

1 1 .-- 1 ■,. ■, Democrats. 

cratic party m the northern States, who did not 
return to it, as in 1S4S ; but a strong wing of that party 
still held the pro-slavery ground in nearlv everv free 
State. On the other hand, northern and southern Whigs 



462 SECTIONAL CONTENTION. 

parted company on the new slavery question so com- 
pletely that their national organization came to an end. 

283. Rise of the Republican Party. 1854-1865. 
The northern Whig leaders now hoped and strove to 
reconstruct their party on anti-slavery grounds, and to 
gather all the forces of opposition into its ranks ; but that 
could not be done. To bring anti-slavery Whigs and 
Democrats into harmonious union an entirely new organ- 
ization was required, and such oro^anizations 

Union of . ^ ° 

anti- never rise at command ; they are always a 

slavery -' -' 

elements in crrowth. In this case the o:rowth was bee:un 

the north. ° ^ ° 

by a popular movement in several States, mostly 
western, during the summer of 1854. In Michigan, Wis- 
consin, and Vermont the people going into the new move- 
ment took the name of ** Republicans," and that name 
was accepted as the movement spread. It advanced 
somewhat slowly in the east, not only because the old 
Whig organization gave way to it less readily there, but 
also because of hindrance from another political move- 
ment which was running at this time a short-lived career. 

284. The ♦' Know Nothing," or American, Party. 
1852-1855. The movement in question had been 
started, about 1852, in some eastern cities, by native 
Americans, who objected to the speedy way in which 
foreign immigrants were made citizens and endowed with 
political rights. At first it took the form of a secret 
society, whose members were bound by oath to divulge 
nothing of its plans. In jeering allusion to the ignorance 
they professed when questioned, they were called " Know 
Nothings," and accepted the name. As one consequence 
of the Kansas-Nebraska legislation, breaking former party 
ties, many voters went into the Know Nothing order, 
in 1854 and 1855. Many state elections were controlled 
by them, and a strong representation in Congress was 



THE MADDENING SLAVERY QUESTION. 463 

secured. The secret methods of the order were then 
mostly abandoned, and assuming the name of the Amer- 
ican Party, it entered the poHtical field in an open way, 
absorbing the more conservative among the Whigs of the 
north, and the whole of the Whig party in the south. 

285. The Strife for Kansas. 1855-1856. In 1855 
the anti-slavery Whigs gave up the attempt to maintain 
their own party organization, and, with Senator Seward 
of New York as their acknowledged chi6f, went into the 
" Republican " movement, which then took form in every 
northern State. Events in Kansas were stimulating its 
growth. 

When the Kansas-Nebraska Bill became law, Senator 
Sumner said : " It annuls all past compromises with 
slavery, and makes all future compromises impossible. 
Thus it puts freedom and slavery face to face and bids 
them grapple." ^ No description of the conse- 
quences of the bill could be more exact. The "grapple" 

in Kansas. 

"grapple" came instantly in Kansas, where 
the first decision, for or against slavery, by choice of the 
settlers in the Territory, would have to be made. Which 
interest would bestir itself most effectually to populate 
that ground of strife became the grand question of the 
day. Bordered as Kansas was by the slaveholding State 
of Missouri, the advantages of position were on Emigration 
the slaveholding side ; but the advantages of *° Kansas, 
resource and spirit were on the other. Stimulated and 
assisted in all possible ways, a stream of emigration to 
Kansas was soon in motion from the free States. Stren- 
uous efforts to move a counter-stream from the 

Invasions 

slave States were made, with less success ; but irom 

Missouri. 

in substitution for actual settlers, armed bodies 

of Missourians (styled ''border ruffians" in the contro- 

* Rhodes, i. 490. 



464 SECTIONAL CONTENTION. 

versies of the time) were marched in, to hold elections and 
overpower the actual occupants of the land. For nearly 
two years, from the spring of 1S55, Kansas was the scene 
of a desperate struggle between its real inhabitants and 
those invaders from the neighboring State. In that 
period three appointed governors of the Territory 
(Reeder. Gear}', and Walker), who went out to it with 
pro-slavery sympathies, changed their views when the 
facts of the situation became known to them, and each, 
in turn, was driven to resign because he would not be a 
party to the flagrant wrong. In the warfare of the fierce 
struggle there were lawless violence and barbarity on 
both sides. Lawrence, the principal Kansas town, was 
half destroyed in 1856 by a mob, collected and acting as 
the posse of a marshal of the United States. In retalia- 
tion, "old John Brown of Ossawotomie" (of whom more 
Old John ^^'^^^ ^^^^ ^^ told), leading a little band of his own 
Brown. g^^^^g ^^-^^ others, slew five pro-slavery settlers on 
Pottawotomie Creek in cold blood. Nothing else in the 
life or death or character of that fierce hater of slaver}' 
can cleanse him of the foulness of this murderous deed. 

286. Election of Speaker Banks. — Assault on Sen- 
ator Sumner. How rapidly the new Republican party 
was consolidating the anti-slavery sentiment of the north 
became apparent when the Thirty-fourth Congress as- 
sembled in December, 1S55, and the House of Repre- 
sentatives attempted to elect a Speaker. At the end of 
a struggle which lasted two months, Nathaniel R Banks, 
a Massachusetts Republican, was raised to the chair by 
the votes of representatives most of whom had been 
chosen to Congress in i S54 as " Americans " or as Whigs. 
The Republican party was now so broadly organized that 
it could enter the presidential contest of 1856 with good 
hopes of success. 



THE MADDENINCx SLAVERY QUESTION. 465 

Before that contest opened, the passionate feelings that 
went into it were heated yet more by a violent speech 
from Senator Sumner, on " The crime against gumner's 
Kansas," followed by a cowardly assault on the IS^-^* 
Senator, made by one of the Congressmen from Say m?"' 
South CaroHna, Preston Brooks. The senator ^^^^• 
was struck repeated blows upon the head with a heavy 
cane, as he sat writing at his desk in the Senate Cham- 
ber, unable to rise until he had wrenched the desk from 
its fastenings, and then only to fall unconscious on the 
floor. For three years he was disabled by spinal injuries, 
and he never recovered full health. Brooks, applauded 
in his own State and other parts of the south, was not 
expelled from Congress, but resigned, and his district 
reelected him, with only six opposing votes. 

287. Presidential Canvass of 1856. — Election of 
President Buchanan. In June, 1S56, the presidential 
canvass was opened fully, by the Democratic nomination 
of James Buchanan and the Republican nomination of 
John C. Fremont. Previously, in February, the Ameri- 
can party had named INIillard Fillmore as its candidate, 
and the nomination was endorsed afterward by a remnant 
of the Whigs. The Democratic convention pledged ad- 
herence to the principles of the Kansas-Nebraska act ; 
the Republicans declared it to be '' the right and duty of 
Congress to prohibit in the Territories those twin relics 
of barbarism, polygamy and slavery ; " the American party 
avoided the question. The latter figured little in the 
northern canvass, but importantly in the south, where 
the contest was entirely between Buchanan and 

Buchanan, 

Fillmore. The free-state vote for Fremont was Fiumore, 

Fremont. 

heavier than Buchanan's by more than a hun- 
dred thousand ; but votes were cast for the former in only 
four slave States, and there were only a few more than 



466 SECTIONAL CONTENTION. 

one thousand Republican votes in those four. He was 
truly a sectional candidate, and that weighty argument 
against him was pressed vehemently, backed by continual 
declarations from southern newspapers and public men 
that the slave States would not submit to his election by 
a sectional vote. The argument and the menace had more 
influence in 1856 than four years later, and no doubt it is 
fortunate they did. 

Buchanan was elected, but not by a majority of the 
popular vote. He carried five northern States, and all of 
the south save Maryland, which gave Fillmore his only 
electoral votes. It could hardly be said that the country, 
by Buchanan's election, had accepted the Calhoun doc- 
trine, that Congress had no power to exclude slavery from 
any Territory ; but the vote appeared to go close to that 
meaning ; especially when coupled with the fact that the 
same election gave Buchanan a majority in Congress to 
support his administration. 

288. The Dred Scott Decision. 1857.^ The " slave 
power" was triumphant; but a greater triumph was to 
come. Two days after Buchanan's inauguration, the Su- 
preme Court of the United States made public its deci- 
sion of a case in which it found opportunity to affirm the 
doctrine of Calhoun. The case was of a slave 

Dred 

Scott's ciu- named Dred Scott, who sued for the freedom 

zenshlp. 

of hmiself and his family, and two questions 
were involved : (i) Could Dred Scott be recognized as a 
" citizen," with a right as such to sue in a United States 
court ? The court decided that no slave or descendant of 
a slave could be a citizen of the United States. That suf- 
ficed to end the case, by putting Dred Scott out of court, 
and the justices were agreed at first that they should go no 
further ; but pressure is said to have been put upon them 

1 See Map XIV. 



THE MADDENING SLAVERY QUESTION. 467 

to declare themselves, for political effect, on the second 
question brought into the argument of the case, namely : 
(2) Was Dred Scott made free by the act of his master, 
who took him for two years into the northern part of the 
Louisiana Territory, where slavery was forbidden by the 
enactment known as the Missouri Compromise ? 
Chief Justice Taney,^ sustained by four asso- tionafityof 
ciate justices from slave States and one from a souri ctm- 
free State, pronounced thereupon the opinion ^"™ ^^" 
that " no word can be found in the Constitution which 
gives Congress greater power over slave property than 
property of any other description ; " hence the enactment 
of 1820 ''is not warranted by the Constitution and is 
therefore void." 

And so the holding of slaves in any Territory of the 
United States, present or future, could be hindered by no 
power, residing anywhere, until its inhabitants acquired 
the sovereignty of the constitution of a State. The 
Douglas doctrine of ''squatter sovereignty" or "popu- 
lar sovereignty " went down under this absolute decision 
as completely as the authority of Congress went down, 
though Douglas tried hard to persuade himself and others 
that it did not. 

289. Collapse in Business. — Mormon Rebellion. 
1857. The Dred Scott decision, delighting the south 
and astounding the north, came on the country at a time 
when political feeUng was much deadened by troubles 
in the business world. For nearly a decade, successive 
occurrences in Europe — revolution and war on the con- 
tinent, following famine in Ireland — had been disturb- 
ing production in that part of the world and stimulating 
it in the United States, until everything in the latter was 
overdone. The return of peace to Europe in 1856 was 
^ Appointed in 1836 by President Jackson. 



46S SECTIONAL CONTENTION. 

followed, in 1857, bv a commercial collapse nearly equal 
to that of 1^37. 

Among the events of the year was a rebellious attempt 
of the Mormons in Utah to resist the appointment of 
a territorial governor, displacing the president of their 
church, Brigham Young. President Fillmore had ap- 
pointed Young to the governorship when the Territory 
was organized ; and now President Buchanan gave the 
office to a Gentile. The Mormon opposition became so 
threatening that a considerable army escorted the new 
governor to Salt Lake City, in the spring of 185S. 

290. Kansas, and the Lecompton Constitution. 
1857. I'nder Governor John W. Geary, for several 
months, and then under Governor Robert J. Walker — 
both of them honorable men, who held pro-slavery opin- 
ions, but who strove for fair dealing with the anti-slavery 
majority in the Territory — a much quieter state of things 
prevailed in Kansas during 1S57. But the fairness of these 
governors ^^*as not pleasing to those at Washington who 
dictated the policy of Buchanan, as they had dictated the 
policy of Pierce. When Geary became discouraged and re- 
sii;ned. Walker was persuaded to take the place, 
to Governor President Buchanan assurincr him that he should 

Walker. . 

be supported in a straightforward attempt to 
ascertain the will of the real inhabitants of Kansas con- 
cerning slavery, and have it carried out. The territorial 
legislature, which the free-state settlers would not recog- 
nize, had ordered an election of deleg^ates to a constitu- 
tional convention to be held in June, 1S57. The Presi- 
dent agreed with Walker that any constitution framed 
by the convention then elected should be submitted to 
a free and fair vote of the people. Governor Walker so 
announced, and tried to persuade the free-state men to 
take part in the election ; but they fe:ired fraud. More- 



THE MADDENING SLAVERY QUESTION. 4^9 

over, they had adopted a constitution, framed by a con- 
vention held at Topeka in October, 1855, which they 
claimed to be the expression of the will of a majority of 
the Kansas people. Therefore they held aloof from the 
convention election, but they came out to vote in the 
election of a new lesfislature, and won seats enousrh to 
give them full control. 

The pro-slavery convention, meeting at the town of 
Lecompton, constructed a constitution which not only 
placed slave property on the same footing as other pro- 
perty, but forbade any alteration of that fundamental law. 
It then appointed an election, to be held in December, 
at which the people might vote, not for or against the 
constitution, but "for the constitution with slavery" or 
*' for the constitution without slavery ; " and, whatever 
their vote might be, the right of property in slaves 
already brought into the Territory should not Tiie"viie 
be impaired. This was "a vile fraud." said Gov- ^^^^-'^ 
ernor Walker, who denounced it without reserve, and he 
resisrned when he learned that the administration would 
give it approval and support. In his letter of resignation 
he declared that he knew the Lecompton constitution to 
be the work of a small minority, and opposed by '' an 
overwhelming majority" of the Kansas people. 

291. Revolt of Senator Douglas. — Defeat of the 
Lecompton Fraud. 1857-1858. At once Senator 
Douglas took a manly stand with Governor Walker 
against the Lecompton fraud, breaking with the adminis- 
tration, and bringing about a rupture in the Democratic 
party that never was healed. The Lecompton ^ 

^ J ^ Lecompton 

constitution ''with slavery was carried easily consti^tion 
at the December election, for the free-state 
men would not vote. In February, 1858, it was sent to 
Congress by the President, who recommended the admis- 



470 SECTIONAL CONTENTION. 

sion of Kansas, with this for its organic law, and who 
asserted in his message that " Kansas is, at this moment. 
Submitted ^^ much of a slave State as Georgia or South 
to Congress. Carolina." Then a battle opened in Congress 
which stirred the old excitement afresh. Douglas was 
the hero of the fight ; the Republicans were content to 
be his allies, and gave him the lead. He could not over- 
come the strong Democratic majority in the Senate, but 
he did break that in the House. The result of a dis- 
agreement between the two branches of Congress was 
a shabby compromise, according to which the Lecomp- 
ton constitution was offered to the people of Kansas with 
a bribe. If they voted to accept it, they should have 
statehood at once, and receive a large grant of govern- 
The re- ment land. If they voted against it, Kansas 
lectedbribe. ^yould remain a Territory till its population rose 
to 93,000, and the land grant would be lost.^ The vote 
was taken on these conditions in August, and the pro- 
slavery constitution was rejected by 11,300 against 1788. 
292. Rally of Northern Democrats to Douglas. — 
The Douglas and Lincoln Debate. 1858. The ques- 
tion was settled ; the attempt to fasten slavery upon 
Kansas had failed, and the cost of the attempt to the 
"slave power" had been greater than it knew. If the 
men who acted for it at Washington, and who controlled 
the President, planned dehberately, as some believe they 
did, to shatter the northern wing of their party and 
insure the election of an anti-slavery President, in order 
t-o excite the slave States to secession and rebellion, they 
planned well. Douglas was treated as a traitor to his 
party, and pursued with unmeasured abuse. The effect 

1 Four days after the passage of the Kansas bill Minnesota was 
admitted to the Union with a free-state constitution. At the next 
session of Congress Oregon came in. 



THE MADDENING SLAVERY QUESTION. 471 

was to rally the greater part of the northern Democracy 
to his support. His senatorial term was about to expire, 
and the election of the next legislature in Illinois became 
an exciting event. Against Douglas, Abraham 
Lincoln was put in nomination by the Repub- and 

^ -^ Abraham 

licans ; and then followed a personal canvass of Lincoln, 
the State by these two men which had conse- 
quences of immeasurable importance, for the reason that 
it drew the attention of the country to Mr. Lincoln and 
made something of his character and ability known. 

In his own State Mr. Lincoln was famous and beloved 
already, as a man of singular wisdom and uprightness ; 
but he had acquired no prominence before the nation 
at large. By good fortune it was arranged that Mr. 
Lincoln and Senator Douglas should hold seven joint 
meetings, for public debating of the questions at issue 
between them. Those debates, in the summer of 1858, 
reported in many newspapers, were a revelation of 
Abraham Lincoln to multitudes of people in Revelation 
all the States. Such simple and clear, yet pro- tJtho°°^ 
found and powerful reasoning had never been p^^'^®- 
applied to the dreadful slavery question before. Douglas 
was a debater of extraordinary adroitness and force ; but 
the stand he had taken, on his theory of " popular sov- 
ereignty," not caring, as he declared, '' whether slavery 
be voted up or down," put his argument on grounds 
that showed to a disadvantage in most minds, under 
the search-light of moral sense and common sense which 
Lincoln turned upon them. 

His bold fight against the Lecompton fraud gave the 
senator a strong claim to reelection, and the result of 
the canvass was in his favor, so far as concerned that 
event ; but he marred his future chance for the presi- 
dency by a new offence to the south. By shrewd ques- 



472 SECTIONAL COXTEXTION. 

tioning, in debate at Freeport, ]\Ir. Lincoln forced him 

to say that, in his judsrment, the people of a 
Douglas's / . . . , , . 

"Freeport Territory, by "unfriendly lesfislation," might 

Doctrine." j •> J . o ' o 

make it impossible to hold slaves, and thus prac- 
tically nullify the Dred Scott decision. This " Freeport 
doctrine," as it was styled, raised a new clamor against 
Douglas in the south, and provoked a new constitutional 
claim, namely, that Congress must prottxt slavery in the 
Territories bv Federal law. 

293. The Purpose of the Republican Party. Be- 
fore his debates with Douglas began, speaking to the 
convention which named him for senator, I\Ir. Lincoln 
set forth the inexorable issue that the country had to 
face in these plain words : '' We are now far into the 
fifth year since a policy [that of Douglas] was initiated 
with the avowed object and confident promise of putting 
an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that 
policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but has con- 
The slavery stantly augmented. In my opinion it will not 
st^a°ed°by ccasc until a crisis shall have been reached and 
LincoiJi. passed. *A house divided against itself can- 
not stand.' I believe this government cannot endure 
permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect 
the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house 
to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It 
will become all one thing or all the other. Either the 
opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, 
and place it where the public mind shall rest in the 
-belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction ; or 
its advocates will push it forward till it shall become 
alike lawful in all the States." 

Four months later Senator Seward expressed the same 
belief in less penetrating words. "It is," he said, ''an ir- 
repressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces, 



THE MADDENING SLAVERY QUESTION. 473 

and it means that the United States must and will, 
sooner or later, become either entirely a slave- stated by 
holding nation or entirely a free-labor nation." soward. 

The conviction expressed in these two utterances was 
now becoming ripened very rapidly in the minds of a 
majority of the people at the north : That the conflict 
between slavery and freedom was " irrepressible ; " that 
no compromise could end it ; and that the plain duty of 
the opponents of slavery was, not to undertake any 
violent uprooting of the system where it existed already, 
but, as proposed in Mr. Lincoln's perfect statement, to 
" arrest the further spread of it, and place it zvhere the 
public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course 
of ultimate extinction!' That was the undertaking for 
which the Republican party was formed, and the approval 
of which was drawing to that party a majority of the 
northern people. 

294. John Brown's Attempt at Harper's Ferry. 
1859. This undertaking gave no countenance to attacks 
on slavery in the slave States ; least of all to such an 
attack as was attempted by John Brown (he of 

^ J -^ ^ ^ Seizure 

the Kansas war, se6 sect. 285), who, with of the 

armory. 

eighteen followers, surprised and seized the 
United States armory at Harper's Ferry, on the night of 
October 16, 1859. Brown's plan was to push on to some 
place in the Virginia mountains that he could fortify and 
hold, and from which he could make incursions to lib- 
erate and arm the slaves ; but the people at Harper's 
Ferry and the neighborhood armed against him so 
quickly that he got no farther. By noon of the 17th 
he was besieged in the engine house of the ar- 

° ° . . Colonel 

mory, and that night the besiegers were joined Robert b. 
by a force of United States marines, under Colo- 
nel Robert E. Lee (afterward General Lee, of the Con- 



474 SECTIONAL CONTENTION. 

federate army). The next morning they stormed the 
building and captured Brown, with six of his companions 
who were then alive. Ten of Brown's party and five of 
the townspeople had been killed in the fighting ; Brown 
himself was badly wounded in the final assault. Two 
weeks after the capture he was tried for treason, con- 
Triaiand spiracy, and murder, and was condemned to 
execution. ^^^^^ . ^^ ^^iQ 2d of December he was hanged. 
His bearing in the interval impressed even his captors ; 
for he was calmly contented with his fate, and appeared 
to have no doubt that he had been an instrument in 
God's hands. 

295. Threatening Declarations in the South. 1859- 
1860. If Brown had confederates, outside of his little 
armed company, they were few, and included no one in 
political life. This is the only conclusion to be drawn 
from evidence obtained on his trial and from the results 
Deepening ^^ ^ Senate investigation. The political effect of 
leeUng. j^-g startling attempt was to deepen the feeling, 
pro-slavery and anti-slavery, that was already intense. 
This fact appeared when the Thirty-sixth Congress came 
together, three days after the execution of John Brown, 
and the House became engaged in a contest for Speaker 
that lasted two months. The Republicans lacked four 
of a majority; but they drew votes from the Democrats 
and elected their candidate in the end. Throughout the 
following session the tone of southern speeches and the 
southern press was more threatening than ever before. 
Again and again it was declared that the south would 
never submit to the election of a " Black Republican " 
President ; yet those who declared so were preparing for 
action at the Democratic national convention that would 
almost insure that result.^ 

1 See letter of Henry A. Wise in Nicolay and Hay, ii. 302. 



THE MADDENING SLAVERY QUESTION. 475 

296. Presidential Canvass of 1860. — Election of 
Abraham Lincoln. When the delegates to the Demo- 
cratic convention came together, at Charleston, in April, 
i860, a majority of the whole convention, representing 
an overwhelming majority of the party in the free States, 
demanded the nomination of Douglas, as the only can- 
didate whom the party could expect to elect. The south- 
ern minority declared that no candidate should have 
their support who would not repudiate the doctrines of 
Douglas and accept the latest slaveholding dogma, that 
Congress must protect slavery in the Territories from 
"unfriendly" territorial laws. On this the party was 
hopelessly split. Most of the delegates from the cotton- 
growing States withdrew, and the remaining convention 
adjourned, to meet again at Baltimore in June. At 
Baltimore a further secession of delegates from 
the slave States occurred, and Douglas was tionsof 
nominated by those who remained. The seced- Brecken- 

ildge. 

ing Democrats named John C. Breckenridge of 
K-entucky as their candidate, on the platform which the 
Douglas Democrats had refused. 

Meantime, in May, the Republicans, in convention at 
Chicago, had made Abraham Lincoln their standard- 
bearer, disappointing the expectation of many, Nomination 
that Senator Seward would be named. But o^^-^^coin. 
Lincoln had been growing in the esteem of discerning 
people, though few had yet discovered him to be, politi- 
cally, the wisest and strongest man of his day. 

A fourth nomination was made in May, by linger- 
ing adherents to the Whig and American parties, who 
united in what they named the Constitutional Nomination 
Union party, and brought John Bell, of Ten- °*Beii. 
nessee, with Edward Everett, of Massachusetts, into the 
field. 



4/6 SECTIONAL CONTENTION. 

Of the result of the election there could be but one 
doubt : would it be settled by the popular vote ? Neither 
Douglas nor Breckenridge could hope to win a majority in 
the electoral college ; but Lincoln might do so, and the 
Republican canvass for him was conducted with a vigor 
that his opponents could not rouse. It was in this presi- 
dential campaign, and by the champions of Lincoln, that 

marching companies for torchlight processions 
AwlSs" (^^^^^^ "Wide Awake Clubs" at the time) 

were first organized and drilled. On the 6th 
of November the momentous election occurred, and the 
Republicans were victorious in every free State. The 
slave States were carried for Breckenridge, excepting 
Missouri, which gave Douglas a majority, and Virginia, 
Lincoln's Kentucky, and Tennessee, which were carried 
eiecuon. f^j. gg|j ^^^^ Jersey divided its electoral 
votes, giving Lincoln 4 and Douglas 3. In all, Lincoln 
had 180 electoral votes, Breckenridge 72, Bell 39, Doug- 
las 12. But this does not indicate the popular vote, of 
which Lincoln received 1,866,452, Douglas 1,375,157, 
Breckenridge 847,953, Bell 590,631. 

TOPICS AND SUGGESTED READING AND RESEARCH. 

275. Presidential Canvass of 1848. — Election of 
Taylor and Fillmore. 

Topics and References. 

I. The absorbing political question. — Blind attempts to keep it 
out of the presidential canvass. 2. New anti-slavery movement 
of the " Free Soilers." 3. " Barnburners " and " Hunkers " in 
New York. 4. Nominations for the presidency. — Result of the 
election. Hoist, United States, iii. 358-385, 397-400, 402-403 ; 
Schurz, Clay, ii. 291-314; Hart, Chase, 95-102; Johnston, Am. 
Politics, 156-157. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 477 

276. Pro-slavery and Anti-slavery Demands. 

Topics and References. 

I. How the slavery question was decided in California. 2. 
President Taylor's policy. — Resentment of southern extremists. 
3. Pro-slavery demands. — Grounds for claiming a new fugitive 
slave law. 4. Anti-slavery demands. — Heated feeHng of the 
time. Schurz, Clay, ii. 319-331; Lothrop, 63-75, ']'] \ Hoist, 
United States, iii. 404-407, 413, 461-484; Rhodes, i. 104-119; 
Hart, Chase, 120-123. 

277. The Compromise of 1860. — Death of Presi- 
dent Taylor. — Accession of President Fillmore. 

Topics and References. 

I. Jacksonian spirit of President Taylor. — Different temper of 
Congress. 2. Compromise brought about by Henry Clay. — Its 
leading supporters and opponents. 3. Death of President Taylor. 
— Approval of compromise measures by President Fillmore. 
Lothrop, 79-103; Rhodes, i. 119-137, 171-180; Hoist, United 
States, iii. 484-496, 515-543; Sch-urz, Clay, ii. 331-355; Clay, iii. 
ch. vi.-vii., appendix, and vi. 426-591 ; Seward, i. 94-131 ; John- 
ston, Am. Orations, ii. 46-83, 118-134. 

4. Webster's " Seventh of March speech." — Feeling excited by 
it (text in Webster, v. 324-367, and, abridged, in Johnston, A7n. 
Orations, ii. 84-117). Rhodes, i. 1 37-161 ; Hoist, United States, 
iii. 497-507 ; Hart, Contenip's, iv. 52-56. 

5. The five measures of the compromise (text in MacDonald, ii. 
378-390). Hoist, United States, iii. 543-548, SSSS^^ I Rhodes, i. 
1 81-185 ; Schurz, Clay, ii. 355-364. 

6. The feeHng that was satisfied by the compromise. Hoist, 
U?tited States, iii. 561-562, iv. 14-21 ; Schurz, Clay, ii. 366-375. 

278. The Fugitive Slave Law. 

Topics and References. 

I. Provisions of the law (text in Larned, Ready Re/.; Hart, 
Contempts, iv. 56-58), and how they destroyed the safeguards of 
freedom for black men. 2. Passionate feelings excited by the law. 
3. Appeals to a " higher law." — Personal liberty laws (text in 
Hart, Conteinp's, iv. 93-96). — Riotous acts. Rhodes, i. 185-189, 



4/8 THE MADDENING SLAVERY QUESTION. 

207-213, 222-226, 162-168, ii. 73-74; Hoist, United States, iii. 
548-555^ i^'- 21-40, V. 61-70; Schurz. CA?)', ii. 369-37-» 375-3/6 ; 
Nicolay and Hay. iii. ch. ii. ; Lothrop, 104-105 : Seward, i. 51-93 ; 
Hart, Cont€t?ip's, iv. 84-91. 

4. The ^' Underground Railway." Hart, Contempts, iv. 80-83, 
91-93 ; Rhodes, ii. 74-77 ; Siebert. 

5. '• Uncle Tonvs Cabin." Rhodes, i. 278-285, 362-365 ; Hoist, 
United States, iv. 237-242. 

279. Incidents of the Period. 1849-1852. 

Topics and References. 

I. Material prosperity and advance. 2. Clayton-Bulwer Treaty 
(text in MacDonald, ii. 373-377). Rhodes, i. 199-202; Wharton, 
ii. ch. vi. sect. 150. 

3. Perry's expedition to Japan. Griffis, ch. xxvii.-xxxiii. 

4. The Hulsemann letter (text in Webster, vi. 488-506). Rhodes, 
i. 205-206 ; Hoist, United States, iv. 65-75. 

5. Kossuth's visit. Hoist, United States, iv. 75-100; Lothrop. 
1 1 2-1 1 S ; Rhodes, i. 231-243. 

6. The Lopez expedition. Rhodes, i, 216-222 ; Hoist. United 
States, iv. 45-63. 

280. Presidential Canvass of 1852. — Election of 
Franklin Pierce. 

Topics and References. 

I. Weakened anti-slavery sentiment. 2. Nomination of Gen- 
eral Scott by the Whigs and of Franklin Pierce by the Democrats. 
3. Cause of Democratic strength. — Election of Pierce. Hoist, 
United States, iv. 133-134, 140-231 ; Rhodes, i. 243-261, 269-2 78 ; 
Nicolay and Hay, i. 330-333. 

4. Deaths of Webster and Clay. Rhodes, i. 261, 285-288. 

281. Minor Incidents of the Pierce Administration. 

Topics and References. 

1. The Martin Koszta affair. Rhodes, i. 416-419. 

2. Reciprocity treaty with Canada. Rhodes, ii. 8-9 ; Treaties 
and Conventions, 448-452. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 479 

3. '• Ostend Manifesto" i^text in MacDonald, ii. 403-412). 
Rhodes, ii. 10-44; Hoist, United Siatts, v. 35-50. 
Research. — Walker's filibustering operations in Nicaragua and 

elsewhere. Hoist, United States, v. 470-4S0, vi. 15S-164, 197- 

202. 

282. Repeal of the Missouri Compromise by the 
Kansas-Nebraska Act. 

Topics and References. 

I. Senator Douglas's report and bill (^text in MacDonald, ii. 
395-402). 2. Assumed effect of the Compromise of 1850. 3. The 
principle of '"popular sovereignty,'' or ''squatter sovereigntv," 
4. Division of Nebraska. — Provisions of the Kansas-Nebraska 
bill (text in MacDonald. ii. 403-405). 5. Passage of the bill. — 
Its opponents and supporters. 6. The political effect. Hart. 
Chase, 133-135, 143-147; Lothrop. 123-141 : Hoist. United States, 
iv. 2S2-461 : Nicolay and Hay. i. 333-350: Rhodes, i. 424-490, 
494-506; Storey. 117-11S: Lincoln, i. 180-209: Davis, i. 27-28; 
Seward, iv. 433-479 : Johnston. Am. Orations, ii. 183-255 : Hart, 
Contetnp's^ iv. 97-100. 

283. Rise of the Republican Party. 

Topics and Referenxes. 

I. Failure to gather anti-slavery forces into the ^^Tlig part}*. 
2. Rise of the Republican party. 3. Lead of the west in forming 
the new party. Rhodes, ii. 44-73 : Nicolay and Hay. i. ch. xx. ; 
Lothrop, ch. viii. : Store3\ 11 7-130; Hart, Chase^ 150-152; Hart, 
Contempts, iv. 100-104; Hoist, United States, v. 130-133: Seward, 
iv. 225-240. 

284. The American or "Know Nothing" Party. 

Topics and Referenxes. 

I. Native American organization against foreign-born citizens. 
2. The secret society and its name. 3. Formation of the Ameri- 
can party. Rhodes, ii. 50-58; Hoist, United States, v. 79-129; 
Hart, Chas£^ 152-154. 



480 THE MADDENING SLAVERY QUESTION. 

285. The Strife for Kansas. 

Topics and References. 

I. Why and how there was strife for Kansas. 2. Emigration 
from free States. — Armed invasion from Missouri. 3. The three 
governors who would not uphold the invasion. Rhodes, ii. 7^-^7i 
98-107, 236-240; Nicolay and Hay, i. 393-418; Lothrop, 162-166; 
Hoist, United States, v. 70-76, 138-172; MacDonald, ii. 413-415; 
Seward, iv. 479-512; Hart, Contevip's^ iv. 104-114. 

4. Lawless violence on both sides. — Mob destruction of Law- 
rence, and massacre by John Brown. Hoist, United States, v. 172- 
185, 286-313; Hart, Contempts, iv. 114-118; Rhodes, ii. 150-168, 
215-220; Nicolay and Hay, i. ch. xxv. ; ii. 191. 

286. Election of Speaker Banks. — Assault on 
Senator Sumner. 

Topics and References. 

1. Rapid anti-slavery consolidation in the Republican party, 
shown in the election of Speaker Banks. Rhodes, ii. 107-117; 
Hoist, United States, v. 186-223. 

2. Senator Sumner's speech (text in Johnston, Afn. Orations, 
ii. 256-288) and Brooks's assault upon him. 3. Resignation and 
reelection of Brooks. Storey, 138-164; Rhodes, ii. 131-150; Hoist, 
United States, v. 313-333 ; Johnston, Am. Orations, ii. 289-306. 

287. Presidential Canvass of 1856. — Election of 
President Buchanan. 

Topics and References. 

I. Nominations of Buchanan, Fremont, and Fillmore. 2. Demo- 
cratic and Republican declarations. Nicolay and Hay, ii. ch. ii. ; 
Rhodes, ii. 169-186; Hoist, United States, v. 256-270, 334-376. 

3. Sectional vote for Fremont. — Menaces from the south. 
4. Significance of Buchanan's election. Rhodes, ii. 202-215, 220- 
236; Hoist, United States, v. 436-467. 

288. Dred Scott Decision. 

Topics and References. 

I. The case of Dred Scott in the Supreme Court. 2. The two 
questions involved. 3. Decision of the court that no descendant 
of a slave could be a citizen of the United States. 4. Further de- 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 481 

cision that the Missouri Compromise enactment was unconstitu- 
tional (text in MacDonald, ii. 416-435). 5. Effect of the decision. 
Nicolay and Hay, ii. ch. iv. ; Rhodes, ii. 249-271 ; Hoist, United 
States, vi. ch. i. ; Lincoln, i. 228-235; Hart, Contempts, iv. 122- 
135; Lothrop, 181-186. 

289. Collapse in Business. — Mormon Rebellion. 

Topics and References. 

1. Causes of business collapse in 1857. Blaine, i. ch. ix. ; 
Hoist, United States, vi. 99-125; Rhodes, ii. 45-56. 

2. Rebellious attitude of Mormons. Hoist, United States, vi. 
129-150, 255-261. 

290. Kansas, and the Lecompton Constitution. 

Topics and References. 

I. Effort of governors Geary and Walker to deal honestly with 
the Kansas people. 2. Buchanan's assurance to Walker. 3. Free- 
state men hold aloof from the convention election. 4. The fraud 
of the Lecompton constitution (text in MacDonald, ii. 435-437). 5. 
Walker's denunciation of it. Rhodes, ii. 271-281 ; Lothrop, 186- 
191 ; Hoist, United States, vi, 47-96 ; Nicolay and Hay, ii. ch. vi. ; 
Seward, iv. 574-618; Hart, Contemp''s, iv. 119-121. 

291. Revolt of Senator Douglas. — Defeat of the 
Lecompton Fraud. 
Topics and References. 

I. Stand taken by Senator Douglas. 2. The fraudulent consti- 
tution sustained by President Buchanan. 3. Battle in Congress. 
— Division of the Democratic party. 4. Bribe offered to Kansas 
and rejected. 5. Defeat of the constitution. Rhodes, ii. 282-301 ; 
Hoist, United States, vi. ch. iv.-v. ; Nicolay and Hay, ii. ch. vii. ; 
Lothrop, 1 91-199. 

292. Rally of Northern Democrats to Douglas. — 

The Douglas and Lincoln Debate. 

Topics and References. 

I. Douglas's reelection contested by Abraham Lincoln. 2. Repu- 
tation of Lincoln in Illinois. 3. The Lincoln and Douglas debates 
(text in Lincoln, i. 273-518). — Their revelation of Lincoln's abil- 



482 THE MADDENING SLAVERY QUESTION. 

ity. 4. Election of Douglas. 5. His " Freeport Doctrine," and 
the new demand which it raised in the south. Nicolay and Hay, 
ii. ch. viii.-ix. ; Morse, Lincoln, i. ch. v. ; Rhodes, ii. 313-343 ; 
Hoist, United States, vi. 267-298 ; Tarbell, i. ch. xviii. ; Burgess, 
Civil li^ar, i. 46-50. 

293. The Purpose of the Republican Party. 

Topics and References. 

I. Lincoln's statement of the issue. 2. Seward's statement. 
3. The conviction to which a majority in the north was brought. 
Lincoln, i. 240-245 ; Seward, iv. 289-302 ; Hart, Contenip's, iv. 136- 
141 ; Hoist, vi. 265-269, 283-286. 
Research. — Compare this with Calhoun's view of the possibih- 

ties of the preservation of the Union. Hoist, Calhoun, 339- 

349- 

294. John Brown's Attempt at Harper's Ferry. 

Topics and References. 

I. Brown's seizure of the armory at Harper's Ferry, and his 
plan. 2. Its quick discomfiture. 3. Death or capture of most of 
Brown's party. 4. His trial, condemnation, and execution. 5. His 
contentment with his fate. Hoist, Ufiited States, vii. 18-59; 
Rhodes, ii. 383-416; Nicolay and Hay, ii. ch. xi. ; Long, 85-86 ; 
Hart, Contefnp's, iv. 144-150. 
Research. — Different views of John Brown and his undertaking. 

Hoist, Brown, 156-175, 204-232; Burgess, Civil IVar, i. 36-44; 

Thoreau. 

295. Threatening Declarations in the South. 

Topics and References. 

I. No confederates of Brown in public life. — Political effect of 
his attempt. 2. Election of a Republican Speaker of the House. 
3. Threatenings from the south. Rhodes, ii. 402, 417-440; Hoist, 
United States, vii. ch. ii. ; Blaine, i. 155-156. 
Research. — Helper's book, "The Impending Crisis of the 

South," and its indication of a rising opposition to slavery in the 

south. Burgess, Civil War, i. ch. ii. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 483 

296. Presidential Canvass of 1860. — Election of 
Abraham Lincoln. 

Topics and ReferenceJS. 

I. Southern secession from the Democratic national convention 
at Charleston. 2. Adjournment to Baltimore and second seces- 
sion. 3. Nomination of Douglas by northern Democrats and of 
Breckenridge by southern. Rhodes, ii. 440-454, 473-475 ; Nicolay 
and Hay, ii. ch. xiii.-xiv. ; Hoist, United States^ i. ch. iii., v. ; 
Burgess, Civil War^ i. 50-58, 69-70. 

4. Nomination of Lincoln by the Republicans, and of Bell and 
Everett by Americans and Whigs. 5. Vigor of the Republican 
canvass. — The " Wide Awake " organization. 6. Election of 
Lincoln. Morse, Lincoln^ i. ch. vi. ; Nicolay and Hay, ii. ch. xv.- 
xvi. ; Rhodes, ii. 454, 456-473, 477-502 ; Burgess, Civil War, 
i- 58-73 ; Hoist, United States, vii. ch. iv., vi. ; Hart, Chase, 183- 
196; Hart, Conteinp''s, iv. 155-159; Lothrop, ch. xi. ; Seward, iv. 
679-680 ; Tarbell, i. ch. xix.-xx. 



SECESSION, CIVIL WAR, AND REUNION. 

1860-1880. 



CHAPTER XV. 

the war for the union. 
Its First Period : Sparing Slavery, i 860-1 862. 

297. Secession begun. — President Buchanan's Mes- 
sage. — Efforts at Compromise. December, 1860-Feb- 
ruary, 1861. The Republicans had won the presidency, 
but they controlled neither branch of Congress ; and a 
Republican President, opposed by majorities in the 
national legislature, could do no harm to slavery if he 
would. So argued the ablest statesman of the south, 
A H ste- Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia, in a speech 
?emifer^4 ^^ ^^^ legislature of his State after the elec- 
1860. |-JQj^ Qj Lincoln was known. Nevertheless, 

the long-threatened movement of secession was set in- 
stantly on foot. South Carolina led the way, calling 
a convention to meet on the 17th of December for the 
action desired ; and the Gulf States made ready to 
follow her lead. What would the national govern- 
ment do ? 

President Buchanan gave his answer when Congress 
met, on the 3d of December, and his message was sent 
in. It was a message which Jefferson Davis (accord- 
ing to his own account) ^ and other disunion leaders had 

1 Davis, Rise and Fall of the Co7tfederate Governtnent^ i. 57-59. 



THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 485 

approved, in the main, before it was sent. They re- 
gretted that the President should feel called upon to 
question, as he did, the right of the slave States to 
secede ; but that mattered little, since he went Buchanan's 
on to argue that no right or power to interfere "^^^^^s®- 
with their secession could be found. Most of his feel- 
ings and opinions were in agreement with theirs, and if 
one of their own number had been President, they could 
hardly have controlled the executive arm of the gov- 
ernment more completely than they did. 

In Congress, the first impulse was to labor for some 
new contrivance of compromise. Many were ready 
to urge the repealing of all "personal liberty laws" in 
the northern States which hindered the execution of 
the Fugitive Slave Law ; but that would not suffice. The 
slaveholding interest would listen to nothing less than 
the legalizing and protecting of slave labor in every 
Territory, as a constitutional right. Senator Crittenden, 
of Kentucky, proposed a constitutional amendment, 
restoring the Missouri Compromise line of 36° 30', ex- 
tending it to the Pacific, prohibiting slavery proposed 
north of it, and protecting slavery south of it, compro^^^ 
according to the recent demand. Democrats "^^^®" 
generally, at the north, and many Republicans were dis- 
posed to accede to this, if it would preserve peace. Mr. 
Seward appears to have had a hesitating inclination 
that way ; but Mr. Lincoln stood firm in private remon- 
strance against the yielding of consent to any exten- 
sion of slavery beyond its existing bounds. On other 
matters he would go far in concession for pre- 
sent peace, but not on that, which might post- coin'sre- 

11 1 n • -I 1 1 • monstrance. 

pone the threatened conflict, but only to bring 

it on at a later time. There was, he said, *' but one 

compromise that would really settle the slavery ques- 



486 SECESSION, CIVIL WAR, AND REUNION. 

tion, and that would be a prohibition against acquiring 
any more territory." ^ The Senate voted down the " Crit- 
tenden Compromise." 

South Carolina had waited for no discussion of com- 
promises, but held her convention and, on the 20th 
of December, passed her ''Ordinance to dissolve the 
Union between the State of South Carolina and other 
States united with her under the compact entitled the 
Constitution of the United States of America." Her 
example was followed in January by Mississippi, Ala- 
bama, Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana, and by Texas 

on the first of the next month. There the 
of seven movement paused. In all these States there 

had been more or less of opposition to be over- 
borne, and in Georgia, where Stephens led it, the oppo- 
sition had been strong ; but Stephens yielded readily to 
the action of his State, and most other Unionists appear 
to have done the same. 

298. Surrender of Forts and National Property. — 
Loyalty at Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens. Decem- 
ber-January, 1860-1861. Meantime, the authorities of 
the seceding States were seizing forts, arsenals, arms, 
and other property of the United States, which the gov- 
ernment at Washington made no attempt to protect. 
It was believed that the Secretary of War, John B. 
Floyd, of Virginia, had prepared for these seizures by 
stripping arsenals in the northern States and filling 
those of the south ; but that alleged treachery is dis- 
puted, and there seems to be some doubt about the 
facts. At least, it is certain that the heads of the 
national government, for some weeks after secession 
began, resisted nothing that the secessionists saw fit to 

1 Lincoln, i. 657-659, 664, 668-669; Nicolay and Hay, iii. 
288. 



THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 487 

do. In a few instances, however, there were officers of 
the army who defended their posts. The most nota- 
ble example of such loyalty was given at Charleston, 
where Major Robert Anderson held command 

r 1 r -111 -1 • Major 

or three torts m the harbor, with a garrison Robert 

Anderson. 

of about sixty men. He had asked for more 
men, and they had been refused. On the 26th of De- 
cember, after the South Carolina ordinance of secession 
was passed, and while the President was listening to de- 
mands for the surrender of the forts. Major Anderson, 
on his own responsibility, spiked the guns of two of 
them, and concentrated his little force in Fort Sumter, 
the most defensible of the three (see Map in sect. 329). 
With difficulty, it appears, the President was dissuaded 
from ordering him back. Major Anderson's example 
was more than imitated at Pensacola, a little later, by 
Lieutenant Slemmer, who defied a command lieutenant 
from his immediate superior to give up Forts siemmer. 
Pickens and McRae. Abandoning the latter work. Lieu- 
tenant Slemmer held Fort Pickens until reinforced. 

299. A Loyal Cabinet secured. December-Jan- 
uary, 1860-1861. In the last days of December and 
early in January several changes in the cabinet of Pre- 
sident Buchanan, caused by resignations, gave the ad- 
ministration a new character and altered the face of 
affairs. Joseph Holt, a loyal Kentuckian, took the 
place of Floyd, Secretary of War ; General John A. 
Dix succeeded Howell Cobb, of Georgia, in the Trea- 
sury Department ; Edwin M. Stanton became Attorney- 
General in place of Jeremiah S. Black, who replaced 
General Cass in the Department of State. These were 
staunch Unionists and strong men, and their influence in 
the government was felt at once. General Dix thrilled 
the country (January 29) by telegraphing to treasury 



488 SECESSION, CIVIL WAR, AND REUNION. 

officials at New Orleans, where revenue cutters and cus- 
tom-house property were beino^ turned over to 

General , ^ . rr , i -, 

Dix'steie- the btate : '* It any one attempts to haul down 

uary29, the American flag, shoot him on the spot." 

But the message went too late ; everything had 

been given up. 

Early in January the President consented to an attempt 

to send 200 men to Major Anderson, at Sum- 
The Star . . 

of the ter, with supplies; but the unarmed steamer 

West. r I ' 

Star of the West which conveyed them was 
fired upon from hostile batteries already erected, and 
driven back. 

300. Secessionists withdrawn from Congress. Jan- 
uary-February, 1861. As fast as the revolting States 
accomplished their secession in due form, their sena- 
tors and representatives withdrew from Congress, and 
before the end of January the Republicans were a 
majority in the House, while they lacked but one of a 
tie in the Senate vote.. They were able in the latter 
Kansas body to pass two pending bills, received from 
admitted, ^-j^^ House in the previous session, one of which 
admitted Kansas to the Union, under a new constitu- 
tion, adopted in 1859. The other bill, known as the 
Morrill " Morrill Tariff," made important changes in 
Tariff. ^YiQ duties levied on foreign imports, raising 
them from an average of about 19 per cent, to about 
36. In both houses bills to organize the territories of 
Colorado, Nevada, and Dakota were passed. Both houses 
recommended to the legislatures of the States a consti- 
tutional amendment forbidding any future amendment 
that would give Congress the power to interfere with 
slavery in any State. The proposal met with no favor 
in the south. 

301. Fruitless Peace Convention. — Organization of 



THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 489 

the "Confederate States of America." February, 
1861. On the 4th of February a Peace Convention of 
delegates from 21 States met at Washington, on the 
invitation of Virginia, to seek anxiously for some ground 
of harmony ; but it had no result. On the same day 
delegates from six of the seceding States met at Mont- 
gomery, Ala., and proceeded, first, to organize provision- 
ally a Confederate government, and then to prepare 
the permanent constitution of the " Confederate States 
of America," for submission to the States. 

%T rr -TN • 1 Jefferson 

unanimous vote, Jeiierson Davis was chosen Davis, 
•^ President. 

President and Alexander H. Stephens Vice- 
President of the government thus formed. 

302. Inaugural Address of President Lincoln. — 
His Cabinet. March 4, 1861. On the 4th of March, 
1861, Abraham Lincoln became President of the United 
States, and delivered an inaugural address which has 
taken its place among the masterpieces of political 
literature, — a model, in spirit, in thought, in expres- 
.sion, in accord with its occasion, that has never been 
surpassed. Of the duties he assumed and his inten- 
tions in performing them he said : "The power confided 
to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the 
property and places belonging to the government, and 
to collect the duties and imposts ; but beyond what 
may be necessary for these objects, there will be no 
invasion, no using of force against or among the people 
anywhere." At the close he addressed himself with 
deep feeling to the discontented part of the nation in 
these words : '' In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow 
countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue 
of civil war. The government will not assail you. You 
can have no conflict without being yourselves the ag- 
gressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to 



490 SECESSION, CIVIL WAR, AND REUNION. 

destroy the government, while I shall have the most sol- 
emn one to 'preserve, protect, and defend it.' 

Abraham ^ 

Lincoln's I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but 

appeal. 

friends. We must not be enemies. Though 
passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds 
of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching 
from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living 
heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet 
swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, 
as surely they will be, by the better angels of our 
nature." 

President Lincoln's cabinet, announced the following 
day, was composed of William H. Seward, Secretary 
^i^g of State ; Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the 

cabinet. Treasury ; Simon Cameron, Secretary of War ; 
Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy ; Caleb B. Smith, 
Secretary of the Interior ; Edward Bates, Attorney- 
General ; Montgomery Blair, Postmaster-General. Mr. 
Bates was from Missouri, Mr. Blair from Maryland, the 
remainder were from free States. Mr. Cameron left 
the War Department in the following January, and was 
succeeded by Edwin M. Stanton, who had been Attor- 
ney-General in the last months of Buchanan's term. 

303, Fort Sumter attacked and taken. ^ April 12- 
14, 1861. From the first hour of his responsibiUty the 
new President had appalling problems to face. Major 
Anderson's Anderson reported that his provisions in Fort 
condiuon. Sumter were nearly exhausted, and that the 
hostile forces and batteries surrounding the fort were so 
formidable that 20,000 troops would be needed to defend 
it if attacked. What was to be done ? Above all things, 
it was important that no blame for a beginning of war- 
like action should rest on the government, and no feel- 
1 See map of Charleston harbor in sect. 329. 



THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 49I 

ing on that score be provoked, north or south. On the 
other hand, it was equally important that the govern- 
ment should show no sign of weakness by giving up the 
fort. From either measure, evacuation or reinforce- 
ment, there were dangerous effects to be feared. The 
President Hstened to conflicting counsels on the subject, 
weighed them with the careful thought that made him 
the great man he was, and waited till the time drew 
near when Major Anderson must have supplies of food. 
Then he formally notified the governor of 

r- ^1 /- 1- 1 ., Ml 1 1 Notification 

bouth Carolma that " an attempt will be made to Governor 

1 T^ o • 1 • • Pickens, 

to supply tort bumter with provisions only ; Aprils, 
and that if such attempt be not resisted, no 
effort to throw in men, arms, or ammunition will be 
made without further notice, or in case of an attack 
upon the fort." The response to this notice was an 
immediate order to General Beauregard, commander of 
the Confederate forces at Charleston, which that officer 
obeyed by summoning Major Anderson to surrender, and 
by opening his batteries on the fort (April 12) when the 
surrender was refused. For thirty-four hours the bom- 
bardment was kept up, the few men in the fort 

Surrender 

returnino: the fire as effectually as they could, of Fort 

^. J J ' Sumter. 

until their quarters were destroyed and their 
magazine was surrounded by flames. On the afternoon 
of April 13, Major Anderson accepted terms offered by 
Beauregard, and on the following day, Sunday, April 14, 
he and his little company, with colors flying, marched 
out. 

304. Loyal Uprising in the Country. — The Presi- 
dent's Call for Troops. — Attack on the Sixth Massa- 
chusetts in Baltimore. April, 1861. The dreadful 
challenge which the government would not even seem 
to offer had been given by the revolting States, and the 



492 SECESSION, CIVIL WAR, AND REUNION. 

aggressiveness of the act doomed their revolt to failure, 
by rousing and uniting such a feeling against it as 
nothing else could have stirred. No one knew the depth 
and strength of national sentiment in the country until 
news of the attack on Fort Sumter was flashed through 
the land and woke it with a shock. Party differences 
were nearly swept from men's minds for a time, in two 
thirds of the States. Prompt assurances went to the 
government that the power at its command, for main- 
taining its constitutional authority and resisting the 
destruction of the Union, was substantially the power 
of the whole population of the free States, and of the 
larger part of the people in the border slave States. 
President Lincoln had a rival and an opponent no 
Loyal stand longer, but a firm ally and a powerful sup- 
DouSas?' porter, in Stephen A. Douglas, the strong 
j^e^r*^' leader of northern Democrats, who lived long 
^^^^- enough, and only long enough, to make his 

stand known. In a speech at Chicago, on the ist 
of May, Douglas said : " There can be no neutrals in 
this war; only patriots — or traitors." On the 3d of 
June he died, and the Union cause suffered its first 
great loss. 

By proclamation, April 15, the President called for 
75,000 of the militia of the States, to suppress combina- 
tions against the laws of the United States. The same 
proclamation summoned Congress to a special session 
on the 4th of July. Massachusetts was the State best 
prepared to answer the call for militia, and the Sixth 
Massachusetts Regiment left Boston for Washington 
Secession- ^^ ^^^ i/th. Passing through Baltimore on 
Baiumore ^^^ 1 9th, the regiment was attacked by a mob, 
April 19. ^^^ ^^^ ^Q fight its way from one railway 
station to another, losing four killed and one wounded 



THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 



493 



in the fight. By burning bridges and tearing up tracks 
the Baltimore secessionists blocked the direct route to 
Washington for three weeks. They were suppressed by 
the strong loyal sentiment in Maryland, which soon 
gained the upper hand and kept it firmly throughout the 
war; but Washington was cut off from the north for 
some days, and in 
an almost defence- 
less state. After the 
Sixth Massachusetts? 
no regiments reached 
the city till the 25th, 
when the Seventh 
New York and the 
Eighth Massachu- 
setts arrived, by way 
of Annapolis, repair- 
ing bridges, tracks, 

and locomotives on approaches to Washington from the 

north. 

the way. trom that 

time the gathering of troops proceeded rapidly. On 
the 3d of May the President called for 42,000 volun- 
teers and for 18,000 seamen, besides ordering an in- 
creased enlistment of regular troops. 

305. Confederate Privateers. — Federal Blockade. — 
British Proclamation of Neutrality. April-May, 
1861. The Confederate Congress, sitting at Richmond, 
ordered the raising of 100,000 volunteers. On the 17th 
of April the Confederate President, Davis, issued an offer 
of commissions to privateers, for preying on the ocean 
commerce of the country ; to which President Lincoln 
replied on the 19th, proclaiming a blockade of southern 
ports, and declaring that the proposed privateers would 
be dealt with as pirates when taken at sea. These 




494 SECESSION, CIVIL WAR, AND REUNION. 

measures led the British government to issue a pro- 
clamation of neutrality, on the 1 3th of May, thus recog- 
nizing the Confederates as belligerents, putting their 
cruisers on a legal footing, and giving them the rights 
of war. This excited bitter feeling at the time ; but, 
inasmuch as our own government was forced before long 
to concede belligerent rights to the Confederates, there 
was nothing to be complained of with good reason in 
the queen's proclamation except the haste with which it 
was put forth. 

306. Second Secession Movement by Four More 
States. April-May, 1861. In most of the slave States 
the effect of President Lincoln's call for troops was to 
reinforce the secession movement by large numbers of 
people who had resisted it before. The right to secede 
was one of the " state rights " they believed in, and, 
while opposed to the present exercise of the right, they 
were opposed to the denial of it still more. They would 
Opposition ^^^ take part in ** coercing a sovereign State." 
cinga'" That was the attitude of many persons in the 
state." eight slave States that stood aloof from the 
first movement of secession. After the 15th of April 
such persons went over to the secessionists in a body, 
and joined in carrying Virginia, North Carolina, Arkan- 
sas, and Tennessee into the rebellious league.^ Another 
class of people in those States opposed secession to 
the end, and grieved bitterly over the breaking of the 

1 Ordinances of secession were passed in Virginia, April 17 ; in 
Arkansas, May 6; in North Carolina, May 21. The Tennessee 
legislature voted a military league with the Southern Confederacy 
on the 8th of May and ratified the Confederate Constitution, sub- 
ject to a vote of the people, which was given affirmatively on the 
8th of June. 



THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 495 

Union, but felt bound to accept the action and share 
the fortunes of their States. This was the Robert e. 
feeling of General Robert E. Lee. It was not ^®®- 
the Southern Confederacy, but Virginia, that drew him 
away. 

307. The Border Slave States. — Kentucky and 
Missouri held in the Union. April-September, 1861. 
None of the different feelings that carried Virginia and 
Tennessee into the Confederacy were effective in the 
mountain regions of those States. There, in 

TllB l0V3,l 

West Virginia and East Tennessee, whose mountain- 

6Grs 

people, to a large extent, were of the strong 
and stubborn Scotch-Irish stock, holding few slaves, 
caring little for the "peculiar institution" and less for 
"state rights," there was a faithfulness to the Union 
which nothing overcame. 

A long, hard struggle between Unionists and seces- 
sionists in Kentucky was made successful to the former 
by President Lincoln's wise course. Had he yielded to 
the hot demand of northern radicals for hasty Lincoln's 
and violent measures against slavery, every "^^^^o"^- 
border slave State would have become hostile; and 
no one else saw so clearly as he did how enormously 
the difficulties of the government would be increased 
if that occurred. In Missouri the contest for control 
of the State was severe, and the first serious operations 
of war were there. The Unionists had a bold and able 
leader in Francis P. Blair, Jr., of St. Louis, 

whose influence had brought about the forma- Lyon at st. 

re ' -1 • i-oTiis. 

tion and training 01 tour regiments in that city 

before the opening of the war. Blair's exertions were 

seconded energetically by Captain Nathaniel Lyon, 

U. S. A., who commanded the national arsenal at St. 

Louis, and he had the support of a large German popu- 



49^ SECESSION, CIVIL WAR, AND REUNION. 

lation in the city, which was loyal to a man. Blair and 
Lyon were able to baffle the designs of a secessionist 
governor and legislature, to save the arsenal from seizure, 
to make St. Louis safe, and, ultimately, to hold the 
State. 

308. The Opposing States and People in the War. 
According to the census of i860, the population of the 
United States and Territories that year, in round num- 
bers, was 31,440,000. A few more than 9,000,000, or 
less than one third of this population, was found in the 
1 1 States now at war with the remaining 23 States ; 
and over 3,500,000, or more than one third of the popu- 
lation of those 1 1 States, were slaves. Of 

tivenum- white inhabitants, the States of the revoltmo^ 
bers. 

Confederacy numbered less than 5,500,000, 

against more than 21,500,000 in the States and Terri- 
tories adhering to the Union and upholding it in the 
pending civil war. From three of the latter States, 
some considerable number of men went south to join 
the armies of the Confederacy ; but what they added 
to its military strength was offset, or nearly so, by the 
Unionists of West Virginia and eastern Tennessee who 
entered the armies of the United States. 

In wealth, and in all the resources that make up mili- 
tary power, the superiority was even greater on the side 
of the loyal States. The active capital of the country, 
its mechanical industries, its commercial enterprises, 
Northern were almost entirely in their hands. Their 
resources, railroads and other means of transportation 
were more extensive and much better in equipment 
than those of the south. They were prepared for the 
self-supplying of most of their needs, in peace or war, 
while the instruments and agencies of trade with the 
outside world were under their control. In their mate- 



THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 497 

rial circumstances they had really no injury or depriva- 
tion to fear from the state of war. 

On the other hand, the States of the Confederacy 
had little to draw upon for supporting a war except their 
plantations and the unskilled labor of their 

- ^, . 11- c Southern 

slaves. 1 heir undertakmo^s m manufacture deficien- 

cies. 

were few and small, and not many of their 
people were mechanically skilled. They depended on 
the sale of their cotton and tobacco crops for means 
with which to purchase most things that they needed, 
aside from food. When the exportation and sale of 
those crops were interrupted by the blockade of their 
ports, they were distressed by want of many of the 
commonest comforts of life ; their armies were sorely 
crippled by lack of proper military supplies, and their 
railroads could hardly be kept in any serviceable state. 

But, while they fought under great disadvantages, 
with a foe far more powerful in numbers and resources 
than themselves, the people of the Confedefacy had im- 
portant advantages of their own in the war. (i) They 
fought defensively, for the most part, in positions where 
their forces were often matched fairly against larger 
numbers on the attacking side. (2) Fighting on their 
own ground, their better knowledge of it, and confederate 
their better means of learning all the move- advantages, 
ments of their opponents, were often worth more to 
their commanders than many regiments of men. (3) 
Their military movements, in shifting forces from one 
point of defence to another, were on lines much shorter 
than the attacking forces could be moved upon, which 
is an advantage of great importance in war. (4) The 
very stopping of their cotton production, and the over- 
throw of all prosperity among them, compelled them to 
devote themselves wholly to the war, making it the 



49^ SECESSION, CIVIL WAR, AND REUNION. 

sole business of everybody ; while a large majority 
of the people on the other side were continuing their 
usual pursuits, and only detailing, as it were, a certain 
minority to conduct the war. (5) Their slaves, attempt- 
ing no insurrection, but giving faithful service in labors 
of the camp as well as in those of the plantation, were 
no source of weakness to them, but one of positive mili- 
tary strength. 

Considering all things, the 22,000,000 (almost) of peo- 
ple who upheld the Union were none too many, and 
their wealth and their resources were none too great, 
for the task they had taken in hand. To wear out the 
resisting power of 5,500,000 of an indomitable race was 
an almost impossible thing to undertake and a dreadful 
thing to do. 

309. The First Notable Victims of the War. — 
Slaves declared " Contraband." May-June, 1861. 
The first advance from Washington was made on the 
23d of May, when troops crossed the Potomac to 
occupy Alexandria, and the neighboring Virginia shore. 
The advance was led by a much admired regiment from 
Colonel New York, and its young commander. Colonel 
Ellsworth. Ellsworth, became the first notable victim of 
the war. While removing a Confederate flag from a hotel 
in Alexandria, he was shot by the owner of the house. 
Theodore '^^^ uQxt death of note was that of Theodore 
winthrop. Winthrop, a brilliant young writer, who fell in 
an encounter at Big Bethel, near Fortress Monroe, on 
the loth of June. 

The commander at. Fortress Monroe, General Benja- 
min F. Butler, had given great satisfaction to 
Butler's the country a few days before (May 24) by 
declaring that slaves who escaped from Vir- 
ginia owners to his lines were ** contraband of war," and 



THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 



499 



should be surrendered to no claimants except those who 
took the oath of allegiance to the United States. This 
dictum was approved by the government, and settled its 
first line of policy in dealing with refugee slaves. 

310. McClellan in Loyal West Virginia. — Its Se- 
cession from the Old Dominion. 1861-1862. Late 
in May, an important campaign was opened in West 



A 81^30' B 




FIELD OF WAR IN WEST VIRGINIA. 



Virginia by General George B. McClellan, a West Point 
officer of distinction, who had resigned from the army 
a few years before to accept employment in civil life. 
Like most officers from the north who had left the 
army, he had been prompt in answering the national 
call to arms. During June and the first half of July, 
McClellan's forces won a series of engagements at 



500 SECESSION, CIVIL WAR, AND REUNION. 

Philippi, Rich Mountain, Laurel Hill, and Carrick's 
Ford, which freed West Virginia for a time. This pro- 
tected the Unionists in action taken to organize what 
assumed to be the lawful government of the State of 
Virginia, and it was recognized at Washington as such. 
Some months later (May, 1862) this somewhat fictitious 
government of the old State of Virginia authorized 
the organization of West Virginia as a separate State, 
which Congress admitted to the Union in December, 
1862. 

311. President Lincoln's First Message. — Action 
of Congress. July- August, 1861. The special ses- 
sion of Congress opened on the 4th of July. The Presi- 
dent's message to it was a remarkable paper, and it 
influenced the country with the singular power that 
always attended Mr. Lincoln's words. The unity of 
feeling in Congress was so great that a resolution pledg- 
ing "any amount of money and any number of men" 
that might be needed was adopted in the House of 
Representatives with only five opposing votes, though 
70 Democrats and Constitutional Unionists were in the 
membership of the House. What the President had 
done in advance of law was approved ; authority was 

e^iven to raise cjoo.ooo volunteers and to make 

500,000 1 r ^ 

volunteers, a loan 01 ^250,000,000 ; an mcrease of reve- 
nue was provided for by higher duties and by 
an income tax, and an act '' to confiscate property used 
for insurrectionary purposes," including slaves, was 
passed. 

312. First Battle of Bull Run.^ — McClellan called 
to the Army of the Potomac. July- August, 1861*. 
By the middle of July the Union army on the Potomac, 
at and near Washington, numbered about 30,000 men, 

1 See Map XII. 



THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 501 

and 18,000 or 20,000 more were in the Shenandoah 
valley. General Irwin McDowell, an excellent officer 
of the regular army, commanded the former, and the 
latter force was under General Patterson, a veteran 
of the Mexican War. McDowell was confronted by 
General Beauregard, with nearly 22,000 Confederate 
troops, at Manassas Junction, and Patterson by General 
Joseph E. Johnston, who had but 9000 men. There 
was impatience in the country for some action by the 
main armies of the Union, and McDowell moved for- 
ward on the 1 6th of July. Patterson was directed to 
keep Johnston's force engaged and allow none to be 
sent to join Beauregard. He failed to do so, 
and the Confederates slipped from him, with union 

defeat. 

fatal consequences to the movement of McDow- 
ell. When the latter attacked his opponent, at the 
little stream called Bull Run, on Sunday, July 21, 6000 
of Johnston's troops had reached the ground already, 
and the remainder arrived that afternoon, in time to 
change the fortunes of the day. The Union army had 
substantially won the battle, when the fresh troops 
broke their line, and a wild rout ensued. It was a mob 
rather than an army that fled back to the forti- 

- . 1 xV 1 • 11 Effect of 

ncations on the Potomac, and it seemed ai- defeat on 

- , 1 1 • 1 t^6 nation. 

most, for the moment, that the national cause 
was lost. But after the first shock of humiliation and 
alarm, the spirit of the country and of the army rose 
again to more resoluteness than before. 

General McClellan was now appointed to the com- 
mand of the Army of the Potomac, and became the idol 
of its officers and men. For the work of military organi- 
zation his ability was unsurpassed, and an army of im- 
posing magnitude and power grew under his hands. 

313. Important Commands and Commanders. — 



502 SECESSION, CIVIL WAR, AND REUNION. 

McClellan at the Head. July- October, 1861. The 

command next in importance to McClellan's was that 
of the Department of the West, to which General Fre- 
mont was appointed on the 9th of July. The Confed- 
erates in Missouri had then been driven by Lyon into 
the southwestern corner of the State ; but they were 
rallying superior numbers against him, and he received 
no help, except from a small force under Sig:el, 

Battle of r- re ^ 1 1 

Wilson's a (jrcrman omcer, whose name besran to be 

Creek. , ° 

on men s tongues. On the loth of August 
Lyon was killed in a desperate battle fought at Wilson's 
Creek. 

While one most promising career came thus to an 
untimely end in the west, another was opening not far 
Ulysses s. S-Way. Fremont had appointed General Ulysses 
Grant. g Grant to the command of a district on the 

Mississippi River, embracing southeastern Missouri and 
southern Illinois. Grant was a graduate of West Point 
who had left the army six years before, but returned 
to service as a volunteer. Soon after assuming his dis- 
trict command he seized Paducah, at the mouth of the 
Tennessee, — a position the importance of which he was 
to demonstrate at a later day. 

The administration of the Department of the West 
by General Fremont proved unsatisfactory in many 
respects. Without authority, and in defiance of the 
well-considered policy of the government, he issued a 
Fremont's proclamation, on the 31st of August, assuming 
ti?npr?cia- ^^ ^^^^ ^^e slaves and confiscate the property 
August, ^^ ^^^ persons in arms within his department, 
^^^^' and threatening a summary execution of every 

one taken in arms within a certain region that he 
described. By the excitement that this caused, among 
thoughtless anti-slavery people who applauded it, on one 



THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 



503 



hand, and in the border slave States on the other, serious 
mischief was done. The proclamation was modified by 
President Lincoln, to accord with the confiscation act 
of Congress ; and finally, in October, it became neces- 
sary, for many reasons, to remove Fremont from his 
command. 

The Department of the West was then divided, Gen- 
eral Halleck commanding in Missouri, General Hunter 



88 D 



>C C irthage ; ^■.■.; V^pringfiSld'^ 
Wit^oti's CreekX' ■ 

Cksaville i? . 



V, Pea Ridye 
^H ■';-, K, 
Fajettevillc 




92 B Longitude West 90 from Greenwich C 



FIELD OF WAR IN AND AROUND MISSOURI AND WESTERN KENTUCKY. 



in Kansas, and General Canby in New Mexico. At the 
same time General Don Carlos Buell was assigned to 
command the Department of the Ohio, and General 
Rosecrans to that of West Virginia. 

At the end of October General Scott retired from 
the 2:eneral command of all the armies (under 

^ , , „ . . , McClellan 

the President, whom the Constitution makes succeeds 

Commander-in-chief), and General McClellan 

was raised to his place. At that time the Army of the 



504 SECESSION, CIVIL WAR, AND REUNION. 

Potomac was 168,000 strong, in excellent condition, and 
splendidly equipped. It is now known from the Confed- 
erate records that the army confronting it, under Gen- 
eral Johnston, numbered but 41,000 effective troops; 
but McCIellan estimated them at 150,000, and reported 
that he could not attack them in their intrench- 

Strengtli • i i i ^ 

of Army of ments With less than 240,000 men. Conse- 
quently, throughout the fall and winter, the 
great army in his hands was unused. 

314. The Blockade. — Joint Naval and Military Op- 
erations. 1861-1862. The most effective work of that 
period was in the blockading service of the navy, and 
in joint naval and military expeditions on the Atlantic 
coast. By purchasing and adapting steam vessels of 
every available kind, a sufficient navy had been made 
up for what became an effective blockade of southern 
ports. Nothing in the operations of the war could 
cripple the Confederate States more than a blockade 
that would keep their raw cotton and other sources of 
wealth from going out to be sold, and manufactures (of 
war materials especially) from coming in. This could 
not be done perfectly, for blockade-running by swift 
Blockade- British steamers was carried on with great 
"^^^^^^' energy and boldness, especially from ports in 
the Bahamas and Bermudas ; but it was accomplished 
so far as to cause extreme poverty and distress in the 
blockaded States, and to add enormously to the diffi- 
culties with which their armies were equipped and their 
railroads kept up. 

Stoppage of the American cotton supply was ruinous 
to British manufacturers, and a hostile feeling toward 
the United States prevailed generally in the business 
circles of Great Britain, as well as among the people of 
the aristocratic class; but the working people of the 



THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 



505 



English factories were steadfast in friendly sympathy 
with the American Republic through all the 



time of bitter suffering that the "cotton fam- famine" in 
ine" brought upon them; and their feeling ^^*^' 
was due largely to the influence of a few men like John 
Bright. 

Gne naval exploit, in November, 1861, might have 
caused war with England, if public feeling had con- 
trolled the action of government. The 
Trent, a British steamer from Havana, 
was intercepted by an American war 
steamer, the San Jacinto, and two en 
voys, Mason and Slidell, commis- 
sioned to represent the Confed- 







THE BLOCKADED COAST. 



eracy in England and France, were taken from her and 
brought as prisoners to Boston. The act was in viola- 
tion of international law, and when the British govern- 
ment demanded the release of the captives, they were 
given up ; but the country was angered by the threat- 
ening manner of the demand. 

The effectiveness of the blockade was improved 
steadily, after the first few months of war, by the cap- 
ture of advantageous footings on the southern coast. 



506 SECESSION, CIVIL WAR, AND REUNION. 

Forts commanding Hatteras Inlet were taken in August, 
1861 ; Port Royal, South Carolina, in Novern- 
strength- ber ; Roanoke Island and New Berne in Jan- 
uary, 1862, and the entrance to Savannah was 
sealed up in April by the reduction of Fort Pulaski, 
after a long siege. 

315. First Breaks in the Confederate Line of De- 
fence.^ February -April, 1862. Army and navy worked 
together with great success in these undertakings ; and 
so they were beginning to do on the rivers of the west, 
where fleets of small gunboats had been put afloat. 
The first real break in the Confederate line of defence 
was accomplished in February, 1862, when General 
Grant and Commodore Foote, moving up the Tennessee, 
captured Fort Henry, on that river, and then 
Henry and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland, with 2:ar- 

Donelson. ... „, . 

risons numbering 12,000 to 15,000 men. Ihis 
opened the whole of western Tennessee to an advance. 
Grant moved up the Tennessee to Pittsburg Landing, 
near Shiloh, while General Buell came forward from 
Kentucky to Nashville, and thence, with a part of his 
army, to a junction with Grant. The Confederates had 
concentrated large forces at Corinth, Mississippi, under 
Battled Albert S. Johnston and Beauregard, and Grant 
ipruV? ^^'^^ nearly overwhelmed by an attack from 
1862. them, April 6 ; but Buell reached him that 

night, and the Confederates were driven back the next 
day. The battle of Shiloh, fought fiercely for two days, 
was the deadliest engagement that had occurred, the 
losses in killed and wounded rising nearly to 10,000 on 
each side. 

One division of Buell' s army, under General O. M. 
Mitchell, was marching southward from Nashville, at 

1 See Map XIII. 



THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 507 

the same time, and reached Tuscumbia, in Alabama ; 
but the position it gained was not held. 

Opportunity for another break into the heart of the 
Confederacy had been opened in January by General 
George H. Thomas, who commanded, under Buell, in 
eastern Kentucky. Defeating the Confederates in a 
battle at Mill Spring, he cleared the way for an advance 
through Cumberland Gap into east Tennessee, where 
thousands of Unionists were watching eagerly Battle of 
for the old flag to reappear. President Lincoln j^ufJJ^"^' 
had been urging such a movement from the i9. I862. 
first, but the opportunity gained by Thomas was allowed, 
for some reason, to go by. 

After helping Grant to open the Tennessee and the 
Cumberland, Commodore Foote, with his gunboats, 
joined General John Pope in operations of great diffi- 
culty on the Mississippi, which resulted in the j^g^ j^^. 
capture of strong fortifications at New Madrid jII^^^q^ 
(March 13) and Island No. 10 (April 7). Many ^°- 
prisoners were taken, and the navigation of the Mis- 
sissippi was cleared for a long distance to the south. 
Meantime the Confederates had been forced from south- 
western Missouri into Arkansas, by General Curtis, 
and defeated (March 5) in an important battle at Pea 
Ridge. 

316. Inaction in Virginia. January-March, 1862. 
While progress was made by the Union arms in the west 
and on the coast, the Army of the Potomac, bigger and 
better appointed than any other, was still in camp. Its 
prolonged inaction was hurting the national cause, and, 
on the 27th of January, the President felt im- 
pelled to issue an order for ''a o^eneral move- sident's 

... order. 

ment of the land and naval forces of the United 

States against the insurgent forces " to be made on the 



508 SECESSION, CIVIL WAR, AND REUNION 

22d of February, with a special order that the Army of 
the Potomac be moved. In the west the appointed date 
was anticipated by General Grant. In Virginia, when 
the 22d of February arrived, the Confederate general, 
Johnston, was in motion, but the Union general, McClei- 
lan, was not. The former was evacuating Manassas, 
preparing to fall back behind the Rappahannock, lest 
the huge Potomac army should be launched against him. 
Two weeks later McClellan's columns were pushed 
Advance ^^^ ^^ Manassas and Centreville, where they 
tegun. found abandoned earthworks, partly furnished 
with painted wooden cannon — " Quaker guns," the 
soldiers called them — to make a show of armament 
where real artillery had been wanting. 

317. The Merrimao and the Monitor. March 9, 
1862. An event of greater importance than the evacua- 
tion of Manassas had happened just then in Hamp- 
ton Roads. Both parties in the war were building iron- 
clad ships. Such vessels had never, at that time, been 
tried in actual battle ; though France and England had 
been experimenting with them for two years. The Con- 
TheMer- federates had raised a sunken steam frigate, 
'^"'^''- the Merrimac, at Norfolk, and covered her 
with railroad iron ; while the government of the United 
States had ordered an iron-clad vessel to be built on 
plans devised by John Ericsson, a Swedish-American 
engineer. Early in March, 1862, it was known that the 
Merrimac was about ready to come out of Norfolk, 
and great efforts were made to have her met by Erics- 
son's vessel, named the Monitor, when she appeared 
in Hampton Roads. On Saturday, March 8, the Mer- 
rimac steamed slowly out of Norfolk, and attacked the 
blockading squadron, of five wooden ships. Their broad- 
sides were harmless to her, and she destroyed with ease 



THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 



509 



two sailing vessels, the Congress and the Cumber- 



sinking of 

the Con- 
gress and 
Cumber- 
land. 



The battle. 



CHESAPEAKE 




land. As the tide then was ebbing, the 
monster withdrew, to return next morning 
and complete her work. But that evening 
the Monitor came on the scene, — a queer, 
low-lying, flat float, carrying a revolving turret, in which 
were two heavy guns, — looking, as described at the 
time, '* like a cheese-box on a raft." When the Mer- 
rimac reappeared, on the morning of the 9th, 
a battle occurred which revolutionized the naval 
warfare of the world. The Monitor was easily han- 
dled, and could plant her shots as she pleased ; the Mer- 
rimac was unwieldy, ^ 
and much at the 
mercy of her nimbler 
foe. Neither did 
much harm to the 
other ; but the Con- 
federate iron - clad 
retreated to Nor- 
folk, and two months 
afterward, when the 
Confederates aban- 
doned Norfolk, she 
was destroyed. There 

had been a panic in all the northern coast cities when 
they had the news of Saturday ; the relief given them 
by Sunday's report was very great. 

318. Work of Congress. 1861-1862. In Congress, 
during the session of 1861-62, important work was done. 
The financial situation, already desperate in the Financial 
Confederacy, had become grave in the north, '^^s*"^*- 
The banks, drained by heavy loans to the government, 
suspended specie payments in December, 1861, and for 



HAMPTON ROADS. 



510 SECESSION, CIVIL WAR, AND REUNION. 

seventeen years from that time there was no monetary 
circulation of gold and silver coin. Expenditures of 
government had risen to $2,cx)0,ooo per day, and how 
to meet them was a question on which financial author- 
ities were not agreed. The decision reached in Con- 
gress included one measure that had pernicious effects, 
and whether it was or was not necessary is disputed to 
this day. That measure is known as the '' Le^ral 

The"Le- -^ ,, * 

gal Tender Tender Act ' (passed in February, 1862), which 
authorized an issue of ;^ 100,000,000 of treasury 
notes, bearing no interest, not redeemable in coin, but 
" legal tender " in payment of all debts. In other words, 
the law compelled creditors to accept them, and so gave 
them a circulation that was forced.^ This was the be- 
ginning of a series of similar issues, which plunged the 
country into a long, costly experience of irredeemable, 
depreciated paper money, inflated prices, speculative 
business, and extravagant habits in public and private 
life. 

Later in the session the tariff was revised again and 

duties raised, — a process repeated at every 

session of Congress till the end of the war, 

— while a searching system of internal taxation was 

devised. 

In March, on the urgent recommendation of the Pre- 
sident, Congress adopted a joint resolution to the effect 
Otter oi ^hat "the United States ought to cooperate 
saSreman- ^^ith any State w^hich may adopt gradual abol- 
March,^' ishment of slavery, giving to such State pecu- 
niary aid," and Mr. Lincoln made persevering 
efforts to persuade the border slave States to accept 

1 By a decision of the Supreme Court in 1869 the legal tender 
acts were declared to be unconstitutional ; but that decision was 
reversed in the following year. 



THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 51 1 

such aid. At about the same time Congress added an 
article to the military code, forbidding officers to restore 
fugitive slaves to their masters. In April Con- Emancipa- 
gress took another step on the slavery question, Distrfct^f 
by abolishing slavery in the District of Colum- aJSiT^^*' 
bia, with compensation, and with provision for ■^®®^" 
colonizing any of the freedmen who wished to be settled 
in Hayti or Liberia. 

At this time the Confederate Congress was passing a 
conscription act, requiring military service from every 
able-bodied citizen between the ages of eighteen and 
thirty-five. 

319. Opening of the ** Peninsular Campaign" 
against Richmond.^ April-June, 1862. When, at last, 
the Army of the Potomac took the field, the line of 
movement chosen by McClellan was by water to the 
foot of the peninsula between York and James rivers, 
thence to advance on Richmond, which had been the 
capital of the southern Confederacy since May, 1861. 
General McClellan was now relieved of the command 
of all forces except those in this " peninsular campaign." 
At the beginning of April, 1862, a large part of his 
army had been landed near Fortress Monroe, and the 
advance began on the 4th. Yorktown was held then 
by only 12,000 Confederates, but the fortifications were 
strong, and siege operations to reduce them siege of 
consumed a month. When the siege guns Yorktown. 
were ready to open fire, the besieged withdrew (May 4), 
falling back to Williamsburg, where the van of the 
Union army suffered heavily in a battle fought next 
day. As the Confederates continued their retreat, the 
Army of the Potomac was pushed forward slowly to a 
line on the Chickahominy, seven to twelve miles from 

1 See Map XII. 



512 SECESSION, CIVIL WAR, AND REUNION. 

Richmond, which it reached on the 21st of May. Mean- 
Norioik time the Confederates had evacuated Norfolk 
evacuated. ^^^ destroyed the Merrimac, opening James 
River to a forward movement of Union gunboats and 
the Monitor, and they, too, went up to a point only 
eight miles from the threatened city. 

McClellan, whose army exceeded 100,000, with 73,000 
opposed to him, thought nothing could be ventured with- 
out a larger force, and arrangements were made for 
sending McDowell to him, with a corps of 40,000, which 
had been held for the protection of Washington. But 
that plan was frustrated by an alarming raid into the 
Shenandoah valley, led by the Confederate 

"Stonewall" -^ -^ 

Jackson's general, Thomas J. Jackson (better known as 
" Stonewall " Jackson^), who made the begin- 
ning of his fame at this time. Jackson's brilliant exploit 
kept McDowell from joining McClellan. 

320. Farragut's Capture of New Orleans and Open- 
ing of the Lower Mississippi. April-June, 1862. 
From the southwest, in these days, there was better 
news. A fleet of old wooden ships and gunboats, under 
Admiral Farragut, had run a gauntlet of forts on the 
lower Mississippi, destroyed or captured fifteen opposing 
vessels, including two clumsy iron-clads, and had taken 
the city of New Orleans (April 24). An army of 14,000 
men, commanded by General Butler, had then 

Butler -^ 

in New been landed, the forts had been surrendered, 

Orleans, 

Mayi, and the city was entered by the Union troops 
on the 1st of May. A more brilliant naval 
achievement is hardly on record, and it gave the Con- 
federacy a staggering blow. 

1 A remark made by one of his fellow officers at Bull Run, that 
Jackson's command stood like a stone wall in the fight, gave him 
that name. 



THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 513 

From New Orleans Farragut pressed on up the Mis- 
sissippi (see Map XIII.), and every town on the river as 
far north as Vicksburg was surrendered to him in the 
course of the next two months. Vicksburg, on high 
bluffs, powerfully fortified, was not to be taken so easily ; 
its capture became the grand problem of the war in the 
west. 

Above Vicksburg the Confederates held no formidable 
position on the river. Movements of the Union army 
after the battle of Shiloh had expelled them from a 
stronghold named Fort Pillow. Then the Union gun- 
boat flotilla (which Commodore Foote, disabled by a 
wound, had passed over to Commodore Davis), ran 
down to Memphis, destroyed nine Confederate gunboats 
in a sharp fight, and received the surrender of the town 
(June 6). 

321. Failure of the *' Peninsular Campaign." May- 
July, 1862. In McClellan's campaign a bloody battle, 
forced by the Confederates, was fought for two days, 
May SI and Tune i, with losses of 5000 or 

^ 1-1 ^ riTT- Battle of 

6000 on each side. Iwo corps 01 the Union Fairoaks, 

^ May 31- 

army, which had passed the Chickahominy, June 1, 

were nearly overwhelmed. In this battle of 

Seven Pines or Fair Oaks, General Johnston, who had 

hitherto commanded the Confederate forces in Virginia, 

was disabled by a wound, and General Robert E. Lee 

took his place. 

Nearly a month went by after the battle of Fair Oaks 

before the armies in front of Richmond came 

to serious blows aerain, and then, as before, of the 

' «• Seven 

it was the Confederate general who attacked. Days* 

° Battles," 

Calling Stonewall Jackson from the Shenan- June 26- 

° "^ TJJy 1862. 

doah, and leaving Richmond almost unde- 
fended, Lee boldly launched the main body of his army 



514 SECESSION, CIVIL WAR, AND REUNION. 

against a single corps (Fitz John Porter's) that guarded 
the road over which McClellan received his supplies. 
For two days (June 26-27), in battles at Mechanicsville 
and Gaines's Mill, Porter held his ground, and received 
no reinforcements till too late. Two brigades came 
to him on the evening of the 27th, in time to cover his 
retreat. 

McClellan had now lost communication with his 
source of supplies, and must retreat, either down the 
peninsula or across to James River. He chose the 
latter, and all critics credit him with able management 
End of of ^^^ retreat. Lee followed him closely, and 
Days' ^^^*° there were five more days of battle, principally 
jSi?iV ^^ Savage Station, Glendale, and IVIalvern Hill, 
1862. while the movement went on. At Malvern 

Hill Lee's army was repulsed with terrific loss, and the 
"Seven Days' Battles" ended with both armies in a 
shattered state. 

The peninsular campaign against Richmond had failed, 
and the country was profoundly depressed. On the 2d of 
July the President called for 300,000 more men. Faith 
in McClellan as a fighting soldier had long been waning, 
and now there was clamor for his removal ; but his 
army was still devoted to him, and the President feared 
the effect of a change. It was determined, however, 
against McClellan's protest, that his army should return 
to the Potomac. General Halleck was called to Wash- 
ington to serve as general-in-chief, and General Pope, 
who had shown energy on the Mississippi, was put in 
command of an " Army of Virginia," formed of all the 
Virginia forces except McClellan's men. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 515 



TOPICS AND SUGGESTED READING AND RESEARCH. 

297. Secession begun. — President Buchanan's 
Message. — Efforts at Compromise. 

Topics and References. 

1. Argument of Alexander H. Stephens against secession. Mc- 
Pherson, 20-26; Hart, Co7iteinp's^ iv. 164-169; Nicolay and Hay, 
iii. 266-275; Rhodes, iii. 207-212. 

2. Action of South Carohna. 3. Position taken by President 
Buchanan. — His message approved by secessionists. Rhodes, 
iii. 1 14-125, 132-138, 196-206; Nicolay and Hay, ii. 303-314, 326- 
335' 358-371; iii- 1-16; Burgess, Civil War, i. 74-89; Hoist, 
United States, vii. ch. ix. ; Nicolay, 16-20; Hart, Cofite?Hp''s,\v. 
182-187, 196-199. 

4. Projects of compromise. — Crittenden's proposals. — Mr. 
Lincoln's position. Morse, Liticobi, i. 190-197, 201-203; Nicolay 
and Hay, ii. ch. xxvi.-xxvii. ; iii. ch. xiv., xvi., xviii. ; Rhodes, iii. 
146-179, 252-271 ; Hoist, United States, vii. 353-378, 388-392, 407- 
424; Burgess, Civil War, [. g6-ioo, 108-112; Blaine, i. 259-268; 
Storey, 184-194; Hart, Conte/np's, iv. 193-195, 199-210; Lincoln, 
i. 657-660, 664, 668-669. 

5. The first secession movement, by seven States. — Loyal 
opposition. Nicolay and Hay, iii. ch. xii. ; Rhodes, iii. 206-214, 
272-280; Burgess, Civil War, i. 100-104; Hart, Contetnp^s, iv. 
180-182, 188-189; J. Davis, i. 57-86, 199-226. 



298. Surrender of Ports and National Property. — 
Loyalty at Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens. 

Topics and References. 

1. Seizure of national forts, arms, and arsenals in the seced- 
ing States. — Supineness of the government. Rhodes, iii. 126- 
132, 238-241; J. Davis, i. 209-220; Nicolay and Hay, ii. 315- 
326; Nicolay, 14-16; McPherson, 27-37; Burgess, Civil War^ 
i. 89-95. 

2. Loyalty of Major Anderson, at Charleston. — His preparation 
to defend Fort Sumter. 3. Similar fidelity of Lieutenant Slemmer, 
at Pensacola. Nicolay and Hay, ii. ch. xx.-xxi., xxiii.-xxv., xxix. ; 



5l6 THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 

iii. ch. iii.-v., viii.-ix,, xi. ; Nicolay, 20-33, 38; Ropes, Story ^ i. 37- 
43 ; Rhodes, iii. 181-192, 216-236, 242-250, 280-285 ; Hoist, United 
States, vii. 378-387 ; Battles and Leaders, i. 26-32, 40-46, 50-60. 

299. A Loyal Cabinet secured. 

Topics and References. 

I. Changes in President Buchanan's cabinet. 2. Order tele- 
graphed to New Orleans by Secretary Dix. Rhodes, iii. 186-187, 
251-252, 286-287 ; Morse, Lincoln, i. 198-201 ; Nicolay and Hay, 
ii. 391-399, iii. ch. vi., x. ; Hart, Contempts, iv. 204. 

3. Steamer Star of the West fired upon at Charleston. Ropes, 
Story, i. 45-48 ; Hoist, United States, vii. 396-405 ; Burgess, Civil 
War, i. 105-108; Nicolay and Hay, iii. ch. vii.; Hart, Contefnp^s, 
iv. 172-175; Battles and Leaders, i. 60-62. 

300. Secessionists withdrawn from Congress. 

Topics and References. 

I. Vacated seats. — Power given to the Republicans. 2. Kan- 
sas made a State. 3. The Morrill Tariff. 4. Organization of 
new Territories. 5. Constitutional Amendment recommended. 
Rhodes, iii. 271-272, 312-313, 315-316 ; Nicolay and Hay, iii. 234- 
237, 242-243; Burgess, Civil War, i. 11 2-1 16. 

301. Fruitless Peace Convention. — Organization 
of the Confederate States. 

Topics and References. 

1. The Peace Convention invited by Virginia. Burgess, Civil 
War, i. 124-129 ; Rhodes, iii. 290-291, 305-308; Nicolay and Hay, 
iii. ch. xiii. 

2. Formation of the Confederate government. 3. Jefferson 
Davis and Alexander H. Stephens elected President and Vice- 
President. J. Davis, i. 229-243; Rhodes, iii. 291-296; Nicolay, 
39-44; Burgess, Civil War, i. 116-123; Battles and Leaders, \. 
99-110; Hart, Contempts, iv. 189-192. 

Research. — The Confederate constitution compared with the 
Constitution of the United States. Rhodes, iii. 322-325 ; J. 
Davis, i. 648-672; McPherson, i. 91-104. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 51/ 

302. Inaugural Address of President Lincoln. — 

His Cabinet. 

Topics and References. 

I. Duties and intentions stated by the President, 2. His ap- 
peal to his "dissatisfied countrymen." Lincoln, ii. 1-7; Nicolay 
and Hay, iii. ch. xxi. ; Schurz, Zz>/^^/;^, 65-66; Morse, Lincoln^ 
i. 227-228; Burgess, Civil War, i. 141-145 ; Rhodes, iii. 316-318; 
Blaine, i. 282-283. 

3. President Lincoln's cabinet. Nicolay and Hay, iii. ch. xxii. ; 
vi. 223-224; Schurz, Liftcoln, ^7-77 '■, Morse, Lincoln, i. 234- 
238, 275-281; Lothrop, 231-233, 246-251; Hart, C /i as e, 202-20^', 
Hart, Contemp'^s, iv. 293-295; Rhodes, iii. 319-320; Blaine, i. 
283-286. 

303. Fort Sumter attacked and taken. 

Topics and References. 

I. The problem of Fort Sumter. 2. The serious considerations 
involved. Lincoln, ii. 1 1-22, 26-28 ; Nicolay and Hay, iii. ch. xxiii.- 
xxvi. ; Morse, Lincoln, i. 241-245; Rhodes, iii. 325-345; Nicolay, 
50-53; Hart, Contemp''s, iv. 211-212; Hart, Chase, 208-211; 
Lothrop, 251-257; Ropes, Story, i. 76-83; Burgess, Civil War, 
i. 155-163. 

3. President Lincoln's action. 4. Confederate bombardment of 
the fort and its surrender. Nicolay, 53-68 ; Nicolay and Hay, iv. 
ch. ii.-iii. ; Battles and Leaders, i. 62-83; J. Davis, i. 296-300; 
Rhodes, iii. 345-356 ; Ropes, Stojy, i. 84-87 ; Burgess, Civil War, 
i. 163-172; Morse, Lincoln, i. 245-250; Hart, Contemp'^s, iv. 213- 
220. 

304. Loyal Uprising in the Country. — The Presi- 
dent's Call for Troops. ^ — Attack on a Massachu- 
setts Regiment in Baltimore. 

Topics and References. 

I. The north roused and united by the attack. — Stand taken by 
Senator Douglas. 2. The President's proclamation (text in Lin- 
coln, ii. 34). Paris, i. ch. x. ; Rhodes, iii. 357-359, 3^8, 372; Nic- 
olay and Hay, iv. 76-87 ; Nicolay, 69-77 ; Battles and Leaders, 
i. 84-98; Hart, Contempts, iv. 221-224, 230-239, 256-263, 307-309; 



5l8 THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 

Morse, LincoJn. i. 251-254 ; Ropes, Story, i. 90-92; Blaine, i. 297- 
300. 

3. The Massachusetts Sixth Regiment at Baltimore. — Triumph 
of Unionists in Maryland. 4. The situation at Washington, April 
19-25. Nicolay, ch. vii.-viii. ; Nicolay and Hay, iv. 93-97, 105-132, 
163-178; Rhodes, iii. 359-364, 366-368, 372-380; Morse, Lincoln, 
i. 255-262; Burgess, Civil War, i. 178-179, 196-205; Lincoln, ii. 
36-38. 

5. Call for volunteers and seamen (text in Lincoln, ii. 41-42). 
Rhodes, iii. 394-395; Morse, Lincoln, i. 291. 

305. Confederate Privateers. — Federal Blockade. — 

British Proclamation of Neutrality. 

Topics and References. 

I. Confederate military action. 2. Commissions offered to 
privateers. Rhodes, iii. 395-396 ; Nicolay and Hay, iv. 87-88 ; 
Soley, ch. vii. 

3. Blockade proclaimed by President Lincoln (text in Lincoln, 
ii. 35, 38-39). Nicolay and Hay, iv. 89; Lothrop, 288-291. 

4. British proclamation of neutrality. — The only reasonable 
complaint of it. Nicolay and Hay, iv. ch. xv. ; Lothrop, ch. xvi.; 
Rhodes, iii. 417-433 ; Morse, Lincoln, i. 368-379; J. Davis, ii. 277- 
282; Soley, 26-35, 153-167. 

306. Second Secession Movement, by Pour more 

States. 

Topics and References. 

I. Effect in the slave States of the call for troops. 2. Opposi- 
tion to the " coercion of sovereign States." 3. Secession of four 
more States, 4. Feeling of Robert E. Lee and others. Rhodes, 
iii. 364-365, 381-387, 401-403, 408-409, 411-414; Nicolay and Hay, 
-iv. 89-92, 97-102, 245-253; Morse, Lincoln, i. 262-265, 268-269; 
Burgess, Civil War,\. 179-186 ; J. Davis, i. 301-302; Long, 87-96. 

307. The Border Slave States. — Kentucky and 

Missouri held in the Union. 

Topics and References. 

I. Fidelity to the Union in West Virginia and East Tennessee. 
2. The wise course of President Lincoln which held Kentucky. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 519 

Nicolay, 137, 143, and ch. xi. ; Nicolay and Hay, iv. ch. xii. ; Rhodes, 
iii. 391-392; Morse, Lincoln, i. 265-268; Burgess, Civil War, i. 
191-195; Battles and Leaders, i. 373-377. 

3. The struggle in Missouri. — Union services of Blair and 
Lyon. Nicolay and Hay, iv. ch. xi. ; Burgess, Civil War, \. 186- 
191 ; Nicolay, ch. x. ; Rhodes, iii. 393-394; Sherman, i. ch. viii. ; 
Battles and Leaders, i. 262-269; Morse, Li?tcoln, i. 269-270. 

308. The Opposing States and People in the War. 

Topics and References, 

I. Population of the 11 States of the Confederacy compared 
with the 23 of the Union. 2. Comparison of wealth, resources, 
and circumstances. 3. Military advantages of the Confederate 
States. Hart, Practical Essays, 258-298. 

309. First Notable Victims of the War. — Slaves 
declared ** Contraband." 

Topics and References. 

1. Death of Colonel Ellsworth and Theodore Winthrop. Nic- 
olay and Hay, iv. 311-314, 319-320; Nicolay, 109-114 ; Battles 
and Leaders, ii. 148-151. 

2. General Butler's dictum that slaves were " contraband of war." 
Hart, Contemp''s, iv. 390-391 ; Nicolay and Hay, iv. 387-396 ; 
Rhodes, iii. 466-468. 

310. McClellan in loyal West Virginia. — Its Seces- 
sion from the Old Dominion. 

Topics and References. 

I. General George B. McClellan. — His West Virginia cam- 
paign. 2. Unionist proceedings, organizing a loyal state govern- 
ment. 3. Subsequent separation from Old Virginia. Battles and 
Leaders, i. 126-148 ; Nicolay, 143-154 ; Nicolay and Hay, iv. 200- 
205, 281-286, 327-340, vi. 297-313 ; Burgess, Civil War, i. 206- 
212, ii. 230-233; McClellan, 49-65 ; Paris, i. 221-225; Rhodes, iii. 
435-437, 442; Blaine, i. ch. xxi. 



S20 THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 

311. President Lincoln's First Message. — Action of 

Congress. 

Topics and References. 

I. Influence of the President's message (text in Lincoln, ii. 55- 
66). 2. Unity of feeling and action in Congress. 3. Measures 
adopted. Morse, Lmcoln, i. 291-298 ; Rhodes, iii. 437-442; Nico- 
lay and Hay, iv. ch. xxi.; Burgess, Civil War^ i. 226-233; Blaine, 
i- 332-347- 

312. First Battle of Bull Run. — McClellan called to 

the Army of the Potomac. 

Topics and References. 

I. Union and Confederate armies near Washington. 2. Forward 
movement of the Union forces. 3. Failure of plans. — Rout of 
the Union army. 4. Recovery from the disaster. — General Mc- 
Clellan appointed commander-in-chief. Paris, i. 225-256 ; Ropes, 
Story, i. ch. ix. ; Sherman, i. 205-219; Cooke, Jackson, 56-76; 
Coppde, Thomas, 31-35; Rhodes, iii. 437, 442-455; Nicolay, ch. 
xiii.-xvii. ; Nicolay and Hay, iv. 314-319, 321-326, 341-369; Battles 
and Leaders, i. 167-261 ; Hart, Conteinp'^s, iv. 309-314. 

313. Important Commands and Commanders. — Mc- 

Clellan at the Head. 

Topics and References. 

I. Appointment of Fremont in the West. 2. The situation in 
Missouri. — Death of Lyon. Nicolay and Hay, iv. ch. xxiii. ; Battles 
a7id Leaders, \. 289-306; Paris, i. 326-338; Force, 4-7; Rhodes, 
iii. 468-469. 

3. Grant's first important command. — His seizure of the mouth 
of the Tennessee. Grant, i. 21 1-217 ; Force, 18-19; Nicolay and 
-Hay, V. 48-49. 

4. Fremont's military administration. 5, His proclamation of 
emancipation, modified by the President. 6. Removal of Fremont. 
— Division of the western department. Lincoln, ii. 77-82, 85-87; 
Battles and Leaders, i. 278-288 ; Nicolay and Hay, iv. ch. xxiv. ; 
Paris, i. 338-355; Rhodes, iii. 469-484; Burgess, Civil War, ii. 
76-78. 

7. McClellan in general command. Lincoln, ii. 87-88. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. $21 

8. McClellan's army and his opponents. — Inaction in Virginia. 
Rhodes, iii. 490-496; Paris, i. 419-421; McClellan, ch. vi.-viii. ; 
Battles and Leade?'s^ ii. 1 12-122, 153-159; Ropes, Story ^ i. 169- 
183; Morse, .Lificoln, i. 303-317. 

314. The Blockade. — Joint Military and Naval 
Operations. 

Topics and References. 

I. Effectiveness of the blockade. 2. Its effects in the Confed- 
erate States. Soley, 35-46; Paris, i. 423-425, 431-443; Rhodes, 
iii. 544-552 ; Nicolay and Hay, v. i-ii ; J. Davis, i. 471-483 ; Hart, 
Contemp''s^ iv. 244-251, 319-323. 

3. The resulting "cotton famine" in England. Rhodes, iii. 502- 
515; Hart, Contempts, \v. 296-298; Watts, ch. viii., xii.; Lincoln, 
ii. 301-302. 

4. The Trent affair. — Capture of Mason and Slidell. Lothrop, 
ch. xviii.; Storey, ch. xiii. : Rhodes, iii. 520-543 ; Nicolay and Hay, 
V. ch. ii.; Battles and Leaders, ii. 135-142; Paris, i. 464-472; 
Morse, Lificoln, i. 380-387; McPherson, 338-343; Hart, Con- 
tempts, iv. 298-301. 

5. Capture of important positions on the Atlantic coast. Amman, 
ch. ii., viii.-ix. ; Battles and Leaders, i. 632-691, ii. 1-12; Nicolay 
and Hay, v. 1 1-20, 239-251 ; Paris, i. 443-464, 580-590, ii. 224-232 ; 
Ropes, Story, i. 184-185. 

Research. — The financial condition and financial measures of 
the Confederacy. Paris, ii. 691-703. 

315. First Breaks in the Confederate Line of Defence. 

Topics and References. 

I. Cooperation of army and navy on western rivers. 2. Cap- 
ture of forts Henry and Donelson. Grant, i. ch. xxi.-xxiii. ; 
Mahan, The Gulf, 11-18, 21-28; Force, ch. ii.-iii. ; Ropes, Story, 
i. 189-191, 210-212, ii. ch. i. ; Battles and Leaders, \. 338-346, 358- 
372, 398-436; Paris, i. 473-474^ 479-498; Rhodes, iii. 581-598; 
Nicolay and Hay, V. 111-115; Morse, Lincoln, i. 353-355; Hart, 
Contemp''s, iv. 324-328. 

3. Resulting advance of Grant and Buell. 4. Battle of Shiloh. 
Grant, i. ch. xxiv.-xxv. ; Sherman, ch. x. ; Battles and Leaders, i. 
465-610; Paris, i. 522-525, 531-560; Rhodes, iii. 617-628; Force, 



522 THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 

ch. v.-vii.; Nicolay and Hay, v. ch. xviii. ; Morse, Lincoln^ i. 359- 
362 ; Hart, Contempts, iv. 334-336. 

5. General Mitchell's march southward. Battles and Leaders, 
ii. 701-708; Paris, ii. 184-188. 

6. General Thomas's success in eastern Kentucky. Coppee, 42- 
73; Ropes, Story, i. 193-194, 200-210 ; Cist, ch. ii. ; Battles and 
Leaders, i. 382-397; Paris, i. 474-479; Nicolay and Hay, v. 115- 
117. 

7. Commodore Foote and General Pope on the upper Missis- 
sippi. Mahan, The Gulf, 28-40; Force, ch. iv. ; Paris, i. 525-531 ; 
Battles and Leaders, i. 439-446, 460-462. 

8. Battle of Pea Ridge. Battles and Leaders, i. 314-334 ; Paris, 
i- 503-514; Nicolay and Hay, v. 288-293. 

Research. — The thrilling episode of the "locomotive chase" 
connected with General Mitchell's expedition. Battles and 
Leaders, W. yoj-jiG; Pittenger. 

316. Inaction in Virginia. 

Topics and Referenxes. 

I. The army of the Potomac kept in camp. 2. The President's 
order for a movement (text in Lincoln, ii. 119). 3. Evacuation of 
Manassas by the Confederates. 4. "Quaker guns." Rhodes, iii. 
497-502, 578-581, 604-606; Nicolay and Hay, v. ch. ix. and 173- 
179; Paris, i. 570-580, 608-615; Ropes, Story, i. 217-239, 257- 
262; McClellan, ch. ix.-xiii. ; Morse, Lincoln, i. 318-345; Long, 
150. • 

317. The Merrimac and the Monitor. 

Topics and References. 

I. Beginning of iron-clad ships of war. 2. The Confederate 
Merrimac. 3. Ericsson's Monitor. 4. Attack by the Merrimac on 
the blockading squadron in Hampton Roads. 5. Arrival of the 
Monitor and her combat with the Merrimac. 6. Ultimate fate of 
the Merrimac. Soley, 53-81; Battles and Leaders, i. 692-750; 
Nicolay and Hay, v. ch. xiii. ; Morse, Lincoln, i. 356-357, ii. 48- 
49; Paris,!. 591-608; Rhodes, iii. 608-614; Hart, Co)ite7np'sy iv. 
329-333 ; Ammen, ch. vi. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 523 

318. Work of Congress. 1861-1862. 

Topics and References. 

I. Financial situation. 2. Government expenditures. 3. The 
'Megal tender" act. — Its provisions and the effect. 4. Tariff and 
internal taxes. Rhodes, iii. S5^~57'^j Blaine, i. ch. xix. ; McPher- 
son, 356-373; Hart, Chase, 245-252; Spaulding. 

5. Compensated emancipation proposed to the border slave States 
(text in Lincoln, ii. 129-130). 6. Emancipation in the District of 
Columbia. Nicolay and Hay, v. ch. xii. ; vi. 224-239 ; Rhodes, iii. 
630-636; Morse, Lincoln, ii. 10-15, 18-29; Burgess, Civil War, 
ii. 78-82; Paris, ii. 739-741; Lincoln, ii. 132-135, 137-138, 204- 
205, 207, 270-277 ; McPherson, 209-227. 

7. Conscription in the Confederacy. Paris, i. 565-570. 
Research. — The " Homestead Act " of 1862, which introduced 

the policy of granting free homes to settlers on the public 

lands. Donaldson, ch. xxvii. 

319. Opening of the " Peninsular Campaign " 
against Richmond. 

Topics and References, 

I. Line of movement chosen by McClellan. 2. Siege of York- 
town. Webb, ch. ii.-iii. ; Paris, ii. 1-14; McClellan, ch. xv.-xviii. ; 
Long, 150-154; Nicolay and Hay, v. 179-184, 358-375; Battles 
and Leaders, ii. 163-172; Rhodes, iii. 606-608, 614-617; Morse, 
Lincoln, ii. 31-47; Ropes, Story, i. 239-256; Lincoln, ii. 130-131, 

137. 

3. Advance to the Chickahominy. 4. Naval advance up the 
James. Paris, ii. 14-34; Battles and Leaders, ii. 172-178; Nic- 
olay and Hay, v. 376-386; Webb, ch. iv.-v. ; Long, 154-156; 
Rhodes, iv. 5-1 1; McClellan, ch. xix.-xxii. ; Morst, Lincoln, ii. 
47-50. 

5. " Stonewall " Jackson's frustration of Union plans. Paris, 
ii. 35-51; Cooke, Jackson, 100-199; Nicolay and Hay, v. ch. 
xxii.; Battles and Leaders, ii. 282-313; Morse, Lincoln, ii. 50- 
58; Rhodes, iii. 460-462, iv. 11-22. 



524 THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 

320. Farragut's Capture of New Orleans and Opening 
of the Lower Mississippi. 

Topics and References. 

I. Passage of the Confederate forts. 2. Occupation of New Or- 
leans by General Butler. 3. Conquest of the Mississippi below 
and above Vicksburg. Mahan, The Gidf^ ch. iii. ; Paris, ii. 149- 
179, 199-203 : Nicolay and Hay, v. ch. xv.-xvi., xix. ; Battles and 
Leaders^ ii. 13-102 ; Morse, Lincoln^ i. 357-359; Rhodes, iii. 629- 
630 ; Hart, Contemp's^ iv. 336-338 ; Greene, Mississippi, 14-28 ; 
Force, ch. viii. 

321. Failure of the Peninsular Campaign. 

Topics and References. 

I. Battle of Seven Pines or Fair Oaks. 2. General Lee in com- 
mand of the Confederate army. 3. Lee's attack and McClellan's 
retreat to the James. — The " Seven Days' Battles." Webb, ch. vi.- 
viii.; Paris, ii. 51-148; McClellan, ch. xxiii.-xxvii.; Battles and 
Leaders, ii. 178-187, 220-263, 313-43S; Long, 156-160, and ch. x. ; 
Cookt, Jackson, 200-249; Rhodes, iv. 23-54; Nicolay and Hay, 
V. 386-391, 413-454; Morse, Lincoln, ii. 58-64; Hart, Contemp'*s, 
iv. 338-342 ; Lincoln, ii. 189-202, 206. 

4. Determination to withdraw from the peninsula. 5. Halleck 
made general-in-chief. — Pope called to Virginia. Rhodes, iv. 95- 
iio; Paris, ii. 242-249; McClellan, ch. xxviii.-xxix. ; Nicolay and 
Hay, v. 454-460, vi. 1-3 ; Morse, Lincoln, ii. 64-68 ; Ropes, Pope, 
3-7 ; Lincoln, ii. 188-203. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 

Its Second Period : Striking at Slavery. 1862-1865. 

322. Preparing to Strike. July, 1862. If the north 
was downcast, it was not discouraged, and its feehng 
was taking a sterner tone. Congress, since December, 
had been debating proposals for a general confiscation 
of the property and liberation of the slaves of all persons 
in arms against the government, and now, on coniisca- 
the nth of July, it was persuaded to pass the ^^°^^'^^- 
act. This was as far as Congress seemed authorized to 
go ; but the President was believed to be empowered to 
proclaim, as a war measure, the absolute emancipation 
of all slaves within the rebellious States, and he now 
felt called upon to exercise that power. With one firm 
conviction and one faithful purpose in his mind, he had 
taken guidance from events in his whole dealing with 
slavery, from the beginning of the war.^ 

^ Two years later (April 4, 1864), writing of his action at this 
time, he described in a few words the course of thought and feeling 
which led him to decide that his official obligation to preserve the 
Constitution must be fulfilled by striking slavery down. " I am," 
he wrote, " naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing 
is wrong. I cannot remember when I did not so think and feel, 
and yet I have never understood that the presidency conferred 
upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon thic; judgment 
and feeling. It was in the oath I took that I would, to the best of 
my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the 



526 SECESSION, CIVIL WAR, AND REUNION. 

Having arrived at a clear conviction of duty on the 
subject, President Lincoln prepared a procla- 

The Eman- • ... 

cipation mation of emancipation and submitted it to his 

Froclama- 

tionpre- cabinet on the 22d of July. All but Secretary 

paied, July -' •' . ' 

22, 1862. Blair approved ; but Secretary Seward advised 

United States. I could not take the office without taking the oath. 
Nor was it my view that I might take an oath to get power, and 
break the oath in using the power. I understood, too, that in ordi- 
nary civil administration this oath even forbade me to practically 
indulge my primary abstract judgment on the moral question of 
slavery. I had publicly declared this many times, and in many 
ways. And I aver that, to this day, I have done no official act in 
deference to my abstract judgment and feeling on slavery. I did 
understand, however, that my oath to preserve the Constitution to 
the best of my ability imposed upon me the duty of preserving, 
by every indispensable means, that government — that nation, of 
which that Constitution was the organic law. ... I felt that mea- 
sures otherwise unconstitutional might become lawful by becoming 
indispensable to the preservation of the Constitution through the 
preservation of the nation. Right or wrong, I assumed this ground, 
and now avow it. I could not feel that, to the best of my ability, I 
had even tried to preserve the Constitution, if, to save slaver)' or 
any minor matter, I should permit the wreck of government, coun- 
try, and Constitution, all together. When, early in the war. Gen- 
eral Fremont attempted military emancipation, I forbade it, be- 
cause I did not then think it an indispensable necessity. When, a 
little later. General Cameron, then Secretary of War, suggested 
the arming of the blacks, I objected, because I did not yet think 
it an indispensable necessity. When, still later. General Hunter 
attempted militarv emancipation, I again forbade it. because I 
did not yet think the indispensable necessity had come. When, in 
iVIarch and May and July, 1S62, I made earnest and successive 
appeals to the border States to favor compensated emancipation, 
I believed the indispensable necessity for military emancipation 
and arming the blacks would come unless averted by that measure. 
They declined the proposition, and I was, in my best judgment, 
driven to the alternative of either surrendering the Union, and 
with it the Constitution, or of laying a strong hand upon the col- 
ored element. I chose the latter.'' Lincoln, Writings^ ii. 50S. 



THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 527 

that the sfreat mandate be withheld until the military 
situation had been changed by some important success. 
Lincoln thought the advice good, and the proclamation 
was laid aside to await a brighter day. 

Meantime, though an unwarranted order of emanci- 
pation, issued by General David Hunter, at Hilton 
Head, S. C, on the 9th of May, had been re- Arming the 
scinded by the President, General Hunter was ^^^^^s. 
permitted to begin organizing and arming the refugee 
colored men at Hilton Head, and henceforth negro 
soldiers were employed freely in the war. 

323. Lee's Crushing Defeat of Pope and Invasion of 
Maryland. 1 August-September, 1862. The brighter 
day was not near ; the worst disasters were to come. 
Pope, preparing vigorously for a direct movement on 
Richmond, gave offence to his army by some unwise 
addresses and orders, and its feeling towards him was 
chilled. Lee, with his superior promptitude and 

, . IT, -1 1 -c Second 

danng, and Jackson, with the swiit sureness battle of 

r , • 1 1 , r 1 11 1 1 Bull Run. 

of his sudden strokes, frustrated all the plans. 
While McClellan's army was coming in detachments 
from the James, to cooperate with Pope, the Confeder- 
ates reached the rear of the latter's forces and broke them 
badly, in battles at Gainesville, Groveton, and Bull Run, 
August 28, 29, and 30, throwing them back on Washing- 
ton in almost as disordered a state as after the first Bull 
Run. 

There was panic in Washington again ; but Lee did 
not venture to attack the fortifications of the city. 
Instead of doing so, he moved by way of Leesburg into 
Maryland, and met little of the welcome he expected 
there. Most wisely, in the circumstances. President 
Lincoln gave McClellan command of all the forces that 

1 See Map XII. 



528 SECESSION, CIVIL WAR, AND REUNION. 

could be used against Lee, and that excellent organizer 

had them ready to start from Washington 
Battles of ^ 

South September ;. On the 14th he fought Lee at 

Mountain ^' J to 

andAntie- South Mountain, and on the I7th at Antietam. 
tarn, Sep- . . 

tember, The battles were not decisive, but they brought 

1862. 

the invasion to an end. 

324. Emancipation proclaimed by President Lin- 
coln. September-January, 1862-1863. The situation 
was far from satisfying, but it had brightened, and 
President Lincoln, on the 22d of September, issued his 
great proclamation, — his First Proclamation of Emanci- 
pation, — declaring that on the ist day of January, 1863, 
" all persons held as slaves within any State, or desig- 
nated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be 
in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, 
thenceforward and forever free." It will be proper to 
say now that at the appointed time, on the first day 
of 1863, the final proclamation was issued, declaring 
the freedom of all slaves in Arkansas, Texas, Louisi- 
ana (excepting thirteen designated parishes), Missis- 
sippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North 
Carolina, and Virginia (excepting West Virginia, seven 
eastern counties, and the cities of Norfolk and Ports- 
mouth). 

325. Dark Days. 1862-1863. Some people expected 
that an immediate uplifting of the national cause would 
follow the proclaiming of emancipation, but it did not 
come. There were months of sore trial to be gone through 
yet. When Lee was in IMaryland, threatening Pennsyl- 
vania, another Confederate army, under Braxton Bragg 
(successor to Beauregard in the west), was in Kentucky, 
and Ohio was alarmed. Bragg's invasion fared no better 
than Lee's; he was defeated by Buell at Perry ville 
(October 8), and fell back to Chattanooga. Grant's 



THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 529 

Army of the Tennessee fought two battles with success, 
at luka, Miss., September 19, and at Corinth, 
October 3, 4, and 5 (see Map XIII.) ; but all luka, cor-' 

1 r 1 • f 1 • IT' Inth, Sep- 

the rio^htmo^ 01 the time was deiensive on the tember-oc- 

. . tober, 1862. 

Union side, and seemed to show ill-manage- 
ment of the greater forces on that side. 

Foreign governments had no belief that the seced- 
ing Confederacy would be overcome, and the French 
emperor. Napoleon III., already engaged in ^he French 
an undertaking of conquest in Mexico, hoped ^^ Mexico. 
to persuade England to join him in intervening to stop 
the war. The British government, although controlled 
by the unfriendly classes, would not go to that length, 
but it did little to prevent the giving of private aid to the 
Confederate States. Confederate agents were permitted 
to fit out cruisers in British ports and send them to sea. 
One, named the Florida, was set afloat at Liver- 

TI16 Flor- 

pool in March. In July the more formidable wa and the 
Alabama was allowed to sail from Liver- 
pool, though proof of her character had been given to 
the authorities by the American consul at that port. 
The ships and cargoes destroyed by these and other 
commerce-destroyers of British build amounted to many 
millions of dollars in value, and a heavy claim for in- 
demnity on account of them was.brought against Eng- 
land when the war closed. 

In the northern States, the united feeling that sus- 
tained the government at the outbreak of the war had 
disappeared. Party lines were drawn strictly again. 
While many former Democrats had left their party and 
joined the Republicans, a larger body, known as '* War 
Democrats," supported the war for the Union in prin- 
ciple, but were sharply critical of the management of it. 
These were bitter in condemnation of many measures of 



530 SECESSION, CIVIL WAR, AND REUNION. 

the government, — especially its military suspensions 
of the writ of habeas corpus, and its arbitrary military 
Democratic ^rrests. A smaller section of the Democratic 
opposition, party, composed of people whom the Republi- 
cans described as " Copperheads," w^ere open in opposi- 
tion to the war, demanding that it be stopped, and avowing 
sympathy with the secession cause. The free speech of 
these latter was suppressed in many instances by mili- 
tary authority, and that proceeding became a principal 
cause of opposition to the government in the Demo- 
cratic party at large. Such opposition, strengthened by a 
general sickening of mind over the m.ilitary failures, and 
sharpened in some quarters by dislike of the emancipa- 
tion proclamation, worked strongly against the govern- 
ment in the fall elections of 1862, and the Republican 
majority in the next Congress was much reduced. 

326. More National Reverses.^ December-May, 
1862-1863. After the battle of Antietam, Lee was 
allowed to retire slowly across the Potomac without be- 
ing pursued, and dissatisfaction with McClellan revived. 
On the 5th of November he was removed, and General 
Ambrose E. Burnside, a good soldier and an admirable 
man, took his place. Under Burnside the 
Fredericks- army was moved to Fredericksburg, on the 
oemij'er Rappahannock, and there, crossins: the river 

13 1862 

(December 13), it assaulted the Confederates, 
who held fortified positions on the hills behind the town. 
The loss suffered was terrific, the repulse complete, and 
another disaster, worse than any before, was added to the 
painful record of the Army of the Potomac. 

In the west there was more success, though incom- 
plete. Buell's command had been given to General 
Rosecrans, lately serving under Grant. In December 
1 See Maps XII. and XIII. 



THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 53 1 

Bragg started on another movement northward, from 
Chattanooga, and was met at Stone River, near Mur- 
freesboro, by Rosecrans. They fought on the Battle oi 
last day of the year, and the Union army came leSmbe?'^' 
near to a dreadful defeat. It was saved by the ^^' ■'■^^^• 
conspicuous ability and steadiness of General Thomas, 
who commanded a corps, and General Sheridan, who led 
a division under General McCook. The high quality 
of these soldiers began then to be understood. 

Further west, in Grant's department, he and General 
William Tecumseh Sherman, his most trusted lieutenant 
and close friend, were beginning movements that aimed 
at the taking of Vicksburg. 

On the 25th of January, 1863, General Burnside gave 
up the command of the Army of the Potomac, and it 
passed to General Joseph E. Hooker, whose fighting 
reputation as a corps commander raised great hopes. 
After staying in camp on the Rappahannock until 
April, the army started upon a movement which placed 
the main body at Chancellorsville, on the south side of 
the Rappahannock, and on the flank of Lee. 

rr-i 1 1 iirn/r ' r i Battle of 

There, on the ist, 2d, and 3d or May, it louo^ht Chancei- 

1 1-11 1 r 1 lorsville, 

another losms: battle, and was lorced to an- May 1-3, 

. 1863. 

Other disheartening retreat. The success of 

the Confederates was costly to them, for Stonewall 

Jackson fell, mortally wounded by a mistake of his own 

men. 

Even before this last reverse, the war spirit of the 
country had so ebbed, and enlistments had so fallen off, 
that Congress, in March, passed a conscription conscrip- 
act, for the enrollment of all able-bodied male ^^0^^*' 
citizens between twenty and forty-five years ^®^^" 
of age, making them subject, when needed, to draft. 
Another important measure of the session created the 



53- SECESSION, CIVIL WAR. AND REUNION. 

existing system of national banks, which proved an in- 
valuable aid to the government in managing its loans, 
and which has given the country many of the advan- 
tages, without the evils, of the single great national 
banking institution over which parties fought so long. 

Notwithstanding the gloomy circumstances of the 
winter and spring of 1863, the vast sums of money re- 
quired by the government were obtained with little dif- 
ficulty ; but the money of the time was the depreciated 
" legal tender " notes (called " greenbacks," from the 
color of the print on the back), and they doubled the 
cost of the war by doubling the price of everything 
bought. Great activity, largely speculative, prevailed in 
business, and many fortunes were made in these days. 

327. Lee in Pennsylvania. — Gettysburg. — Vicks- 
burg.^ July, 1863. After Chancellorsville, Lee planned 
another attempt to carry the war into the northern 
States, and his army w^as set in motion on the 3d of 
June. Before the end of the month he had passed up 
the Shenandoah, crossed the Potomac, marched through 
Maryland, and was in Pennsylvania, with about 75,000 
men. Hooker had followed, on the eastern side of the 
Blue Ridge, but had disagreements with Halleck, and 
asked, on the 27th of June, to be relieved. His request 
was complied with, and General George G. ]\Ieade, of 
the Fifth Corps, received the chief command. Four 
days later the two armies met at Gettysburg, in south- 
ern Pennsylvania, and fought, during three days, July 
Battle of ^' -' ^""^ 3' ^^^ most terrific battle of the 
jS^i^a!"^' ^^'^^- The killed and wounded of the Union 
1863. army numbered more than 17,000 out of 

93,000 ; those of the Confederate army exceeded 15,000 
out of 70,000. The latter was more shattered than the 
1 See Maps XII. and XIII. 



THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 533 

former ; its campaign of invasion was a failure, and Lee 
drew back in retreat. At last, a great victory for the 
Union had been won, and the country had the news of 
it on a memorable 4th of July. 

How doubly memorable that 4th of July had been 
made was not known in the north until three days later, 
when news came from General Grant. He The taking 
had taken Vicksburg on the morning of Indc- Su7g?juiy 
pendence Day, after more than five months *' ^^^^' 
of labor, battle, and siege. From the end of January 
till the middle of April he had struggled with difficulties 
created by the surrounding bayous and swamps, trying 
to put his army on high ground behind the place. At 
length, with the help of Admiral Porter, who ran a fleet 
of gunboats and transports past the Vicksburg batteries, 
the army was placed at a point below Vicksburg on the 
east side of the river, and fought its way to the position 
desired. Failing, on the 22d of May, to carry the works 
by assault, he opened a siege, which ended in the sur- 
render of the place on the 4th of July. 

On the 8th of July Port Hudson, a few miles above 
Baton Rouge, was surrendered to General Banks, whose 
forces, cooperating: with Farra2:ut's fleet, had 

. ° ^ . Surrender 

been assailing its strono: fortifications since of Port 

^ ^ 1 ^ Hudson, 

the latter part of May. This was the last Con- Julys, 
federate stronghold on the Mississippi, and 
the great river was reopened throughout its length. 
The Confederacy was cut in twain ; it lost the resources 
of the States west of the river, and the war in that 
region had little importance thereafter. 

328. Draft Riot in New York. July, 1863. Gettys- 
burg, Vicksburg, and the reopening of the Mississippi 
revived confidence in the final success of the Union 
arms ; but they were not permitted to raise the spirits 



534 SECESSION, CIVIL WAR, AND REUNION. 



of the northern people to an exuberant height. The 
draft, just beginning to be enforced, was a dismal mat- 
ter at the best, and it became an alarming one on the 
13th of July, when the most ferocious and destructive 
riot that America has ever known broke out in the city 
of New York. For four days a wild mob fought militia 
and national troops, as well as the police, and was not 
suppressed until 1000, at least, are believed to have 
been killed. 

329. Operations against Charleston. — Quiet in 
Virginia. April-September, 1863. Military and naval 
undertakings against Charleston were not having suc- 
cess. In April 
Admiral Dupont, 
with seven Erics- 
son monitors and 
two partially iron- 
clad vessels, had 
attempted to en- 
ter the harbor and 
had been beaten 
off by the forts. 
Then a landing of 
forces on Morris 
Island, at the en- 
trance to the harbor, was effected by General Gillmore, 
and on the i8th of July an assault on the Confederate 
Fort Wagner was repulsed with grievous loss. 
The storming party was headed by a regiment 
of colored soldiers, who fought bravely, and 
their colonel, Robert G. Shaw, of Massachu- 
setts, was among the slain. Some weeks later, in Sep- 
tember, after long bombardment, the Confederates evac- 
uated Fort Wagner, and guns were mounted in it which 




CHARLESTON HARBOR. 



Assault 
on Fort 
Wagner, 
July 18, 
1863. 



THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 535 

threw shells into Charleston, doing much damage to the 
city and bringing blockade-running to an end. 

After the battle of Gettysburg Lee was again per- 
mitted to make an undisturbed retreat into Virginia, 
and his army and Meade's were back, before the end 
of July, on nearly their old ground. During the next 
few months there were frustrated movements on both 
sides, with no severe fighting. Large forces were drawn 
from both armies in September to reinforce Rosecrans 
and Bragg in Tennessee, one led by Hooker, the other 
under Longstreet's command. 

330. Critical Situation in Tennessee. — Grant to 
the Rescue.^ August-December, 1863. The effort 
which President Lincoln had been urging since the war 
began, to occupy East Tennessee and liberate its loyal 
people, was about to be made. Burnside, transferred 
to eastern Kentucky, penetrated the valley which leads 
to Knoxville in August, and compelled the evacuation 
of that town. At about the same time, on the southern 
border of the State, Rosecrans forced Bragg out of 
Chattanooga and took possession (September 8) of what 
was considered the military key to the whole mountain 
region. Then, pursuing Bragg, he separated his forces 
unwisely, and paid dearly for the error on the 19th and 
20th, when the Confederate sreneral, rein- 

. Battle of 

forced by Lon^street, turned upon him and cwcka- 

. f . mauga,Sep- 

routed all but the left wing of his army, com- temberia- 

. . -^ 20,1863. 

manded by Thomas, which held its ground 
against heavy odds. Saved by Thomas, "the Rock of 
Chickamaugua," as he has been called, the army retreated 
from the bloody field of Chickamauga to Chattanooga, 
and was practically in a state of siege for the next two 
months. 

» See Map XIII. 



536 SECESSION, CIVIL WAR, AND REUNION. 

Command of the Army of the Cumberland was now- 
transferred from Rosecrans to Thomas ; Sherman was 
appointed to the command of the Army of the Tennes- 
see ; and both, with the Department of Ohio, were 
united in one miUtary division, under General Grant. 
Grant, reaching Chattanooga on the 23d of October, 
began preparations to extricate the Army of the Cum- 
berland from its dangerous position. Rein- 
Chatta- forced by Hooker with two corps from the 
veSer24- Army of the Potomac, and by Sherman with 

OR 1863 

one corps from Memphis, his plans were carried 
out on the 24th and 25th of November with perfect 
success. Sherman drove the Confederates from a 
neighboring height, called Missionary Ridge, while 
Hooker cleared them from Lookout Mountain, in a 
battle fought above the low-lying clouds of a misty day. 
As a dramatic spectacle, these battles at Chattanooga 
were among the most remarkable ever fought. They 
had important results, including the complete deliver- 
ance of East Tennessee. Longstreet, sent 
Tennesses against Burnside after the battle of Chicka- 
mauga, had shut the latter up in Knoxville, 
and that besieged town had been reduced to great dis- 
tress. It was now relieved by Sherman ; Longstreet 
retired, and East Tennessee was free. 

A sadly interesting incident of the later weeks of 
the year was the dedication, at Gettysburg, 

Lincoln's tvt i r . c .^ 

Gettysburg November 19, or a cemetery tor the many 
Novemij'er dead of the great battle, and the speaking 
there of a few words of address by President 
Lincoln, which are immortal in their tender eloquence. 

331. Amnesty offered by President Lincoln. — His 
plan of "Reconstruction." December-July, 1863- 
1864. With his annual message to Congress, in De- 



THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 537 

cember, the President issued a proclamation of amnesty, 
which opened doors for the return of both individuals 
and States to the Union fold. Excepting certain classes 
of leaders and special offenders, the proclamation offered 
full pardon, "with restoration of all rights of property 
except as to slaves," to every participant in the rebel- 
lion who would subscribe a given oath. The prescribed 
oath pledged fidelity to the Constitution and the Union, 
and support to what had been done by legislation and 
proclamation touching slavery, " so long and so far as 
not repealed, modified, or held void " by Congress or the 
Supreme Court. The proclamation then made known 
that whenever, in any State where rebellion had been 
prevailing, a number of qualified voters, not less than 
one tenth of the number of votes cast at the 
presidential election in i860, should, after tak- Lincoln's 
ing the prescribed oath, reestablish a republi- reconstruc- 
can state government, conforming to the oath, 
such government would be recognized as the true gov- 
ernment of the State ; but the admission to Congress 
of senators and representatives from such State would 
depend on the action of Congress itself. This, said the 
President, " is intended to present ... a mode in and 
by which the national authority and loyal state govern- 
ments may be reestablished " in the States designated ; 
but "it must not be understood that no other possible 
mode would be acceptable." 

At first the proclamation and its suggested plan of 
"reconstruction " for the States at war with the Union 
was received with general satisfaction in Congress, as it 
was in the Union at large. But a few radicals took ex- 
ception to its leniency, and declared that Congress only 
could determine the mode of dealing with the seceded 
States. According to the radical view, the rebellion of 



538 SECESSION, CIVIL WAR, AND REUNION. 

those States had wrought a forfeiture of all their consti- 
Radicai tutional rights ; it had destroyed their status 
opposition, ^g States, and reduced them to that of Terri- 
tories, or subjugated provinces, whenever their rebellion 
should be overcome. In this view the President's plan 
of restoration was too simple and too mild in its terms. 
It was a view that gained ground in Congress, until it 
brought about the passage of an act in the last hours of 
the session (July 4, 1864) which embodied a different 
plan. The act in question required that a majority of 
congres- ^^^ white male citizens of a State in rebellion 
ofMcon-^ should take the prescribed oath before any 
struction. u reconstruction " of state government could 
occur, and that the proceeding of reconstruction should 
be in one precisely defined mode. This would nullify 
action taken already under the President's proclamation 
in Louisiana and Arkansas, where state governments 
had been organized under constitutions which prohibited 
slavery forever. The bill came to the President an hour 
before Congress adjourned. He declined to sign it, but 
submitted it a few days later to the consideration of the 
people in a proclamation, saying : " While I 

President's *■ ^ ^ ' j o 

prociama- am . . . unprepared, by a formal approval of 
this bill, to be inflexibly committed to any 
single plan of restoration, and while I am also unpre- 
pared to declare that the free state constitutions and 
governments already adopted and installed in Arkansas 
and Louisiana shall be set aside and held for naught, 
thereby repelling and discouraging the loyal citizens who 
have set up the same as to further effort, . . . neverthe- 
less I am fully satisfied with the system for restoration 
contained in the bill, as one very proper plan for the 
loyal people of any State choosing to adopt it." By 
taking this wise course President Lincoln avoided a mis- 



THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 539 

chievous issue between Congress and himself. Public 
opinion sustained his policy and his action, and when 
his radical opponents, at the next session of Congress, 
attempted new legislation to undo his measures, they 
could carry it through neither House. These are facts 
to be remembered when the '' reconstruction " conflicts 
of a later period, after Lincoln's death, come into view. 

332. Grant made Lieutenant-General, in Chief Com- 
mand. March, 1864. Since his notable success at Chat- 
tanooga, following that at Vicksburg, the hopes of the 
nation were fixed on Grant. An act of Congress in 
February, 1864, revived the rank of lieutenant-general, 
which none since Washington had held, and Grant was 
appointed to it on the 3d of March. He was called to 
the capital at once and assumed the general command, 
taking personal direction of operations in Virginia at the 
President's request. Sherman succeeded him in the 
western command. And now the war entered its final 
stage. 

General Meade retained command of the army of the 
Potomac, but Grant was with it in the subsequent cam- 
paign. Burnside's corps was brought east again to join 
it, and Sheridan came to take command of the cavalry 
corps. Grant's plan was to move directly across 

., General 

country upon Richmond, through the wilder- Grant's 
ness in which Hooker met defeat, fighting his 
way, wearing his antagonist down ; while a cooperating 
army under Butler (who had returned from New Orleans 
to Fortress Monroe) moved up the James, and another 
under Sigel held the Shenandoah and broke Lee's com- 
munications with the west. At the same time Sherman 
was to advance from Chattanooga upon Atlanta, en- 
gaging an army commanded by General Joseph E, John- 
ston, who had succeeded Bragg ; and General Banks, sue- 



540 SECESSION, CIVIL WAR, AND REUNION. 

cessor to Butler at New Orleans, was to move against 
Mobile. Sherman had about 100,000 men for his move- 
ment, against some 75,000 ; Grant started from the 
Rapidan with 122,000, and Lee had about 62,000; but 
the advantage of the Confederates in making a defensive 
fight, and in holding the inner line of every movement, 
was very great. 

333. Grant's Movement on Richmond.^ May-June, 
1864. Grant crossed the Rapidan and opened the cam- 
paign on the 4th of May. No details of the dreadful 
month of battles that followed can be given in this place. 
Thewii- T^^^o days (May 6-y) of terrific fighting in the 
SpS?s^yiva- Wilderness ; two more (May 10 and 12), and a 
S^af May, week of less general fighting, at and near Spott- 
1864. sylvania Court House ; a third hard encounter 
(May 23) on the North Anna River, with minor con- 
flicts incessantly, brought what survived of the great 
Army of the Potomac to the vicinity of the Chicka- 
hominy (May 28), where McClellan had been two years 
before. There, on the ist and 3d of June, the Confed- 
CoidHar- erate lines were attacked, at Cold Harbor, and 
bor.Junei nearly 10,000 killed and wounded were the 
^^^^- cost of a vain assault. Almost if not quite 
40,000 had fallen since the movement began, while the 
Confederate loss had been much less. 

Meantime, General Butler, moving up the James to 
attack Richmond, had been met by forces brought from 
the Carolinas by Beauregard, and had been driven to 
an intrenched position at Bermuda Hundred, where, as 
Grant expressed it, he was " bottled up." Most of his 
force was then drawn away to the Potomac army. 

334. Sherman's Movement on Atlanta.'^ May-July, 
1864. Three days after Grant set out from the Rapi- 

1 See Map XII. 2 See Map XIII. 



THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 54I 

dan Sherman moved against Johnston, who retreated 
before him. There was no serious engagement uewHope 
until May 25-28, at New Hope Church, after May"25. 
which, as Sherman relates, " not a day, not ^^' ^^^^' 
an hour, not a minute, was there a cessation of fire." 
"And thus matters continued until June 27," when a 
general assault was made on Johnston's lines at Kene- 
saw. Three days afterward Johnston resumed xenesaw 
his retreat, and the next battle occurred at p^ch^Tree 
Peach Tree Creek, July 20 ; but Johnston had jSy^^o, 
then been superseded by General Hood. Hood ^®®^" 
was driven into Atlanta with heavy loss, and a siege 
of the city was begun. Among those who fell on the 
Union side was General McPherson, who commanded 
Grant's and Sherman's old Army of the Tennessee, and 
who was rising to prominence among the best soldiers 
of the war. 

335. Grant before Petersburg. — Sheridan in the 
Shenandoah Valley,^ June-October, 1864. After 
the bloody repulse at Cold Harbor, Grant changed his 
base of supplies to the James, crossed the river, and 
moved against Petersburg, attempting to take that city, 
south of Richmond, by a sudden stroke, which failed. 
From that time (the middle of June) until nearly the 
ending of the war, the Army of the Potomac remained 
in front of Petersburg, not carrying on a regular siege, 
though its work was so called, but making attacks on the 
forces there and at Richmond, and on Lee's communi- 
cations with the south. 

The more active campaigning of the summer and fall 
was in the Shenandoah, where the Confederate com- 
mander. Early, overmatched the Union generals, Sigel, 
Hunter, and Cooke, and invaded Maryland and Penn- 

1 See Map XII. 



542 SECESSION, CIVIL WAR, AND REUNION. 

sylvania in July, threatening Baltimore, and Washington 
itself. Troops from the Army of the Potomac were 
summoned hastily, and Sheridan was brought up to take 
command of a " Middle Military Division," embracing 
everything between Sherman's command and Meade's. 
Then a brilliant campaign in the Shenandoah valley 
was opened, and ran through a series of victories won 

by Sheridan, at Winchester, September 19, 
Fisher's ' at Fishcr's Hill on the 22d, at Cedar Creek, 
Creek, October 19. Sheridan was absent from the 

October, field when the last-named battle began, and 

made a famous ride of twenty miles to reach 
it, and to snatch victory from defeat. The result of the 
campaign was to clear the valley of the Confederates 
and to lay it waste from end to end. 

336. Naval Exploits, June- August, 1864. In this 
exciting summer of 1864 the navy had been doing 
important work. After a career of nearly two years, in 

which she had destroyed millions of dollars' 
of the worth of property, the Confederate cruiser 

Alabama, r r j ' 

June 19, Alabama was encountered (June ig) on the 
1864. ^-^ -^^ 

coast of France, near Cherbourg, by the United 

States steamer Kearsarge, and sunk in an engagement 
which lasted but an hour. 

On the 5th of August Admiral Farragut almost sur- 
rarragut passed his feat at New Orleans, by entering 
August 5; ^he harbor of Mobile with his fleet, destroying 
^®^^' the Confederate naval force there and captur- 

ing the forts. The city itself was not occupied till a 
later time. 

337. Sherman's March to the Sea. September- 
December, 1864. Sherman's siege of Atlanta ended 
on the 2d of September, when Hood evacuated the 
town. Its few inhabitants were then removed, and it 



THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 



543 



was made exclusively a military post. Hood withdrew 
for a short distance only, and, early in October, he 
moved suddenly northward, pushing for the rear of 
Sherman's army ; but Sherman was not disturbed. 
General Thomas, with a large force, had been sent back 
to Nashville, and Hood was left to his care. The north- 
ward raid was rather favorable to a 
daring plan which Sherman had 
conceived and Grant ap- 
proved. Pursuant 
to that plan, 
Sherman 

"Waynei 




TRACK OF SHERMAN'S MARCH 
TO THE SEA. 



destroyed 
Atlanta, broke 
away from all com 
munication with the north, 
and started, on the i6th of 
November, with 60,000 veteran 
troops, on his memorable "march 

to the sea," foraging for subsistence as he went, and 
leaving a widely desolated track. On the loth of Decem- 
ber he reached Savannah ; on the 20th the Confederates 
evacuated that town. 

Hood's army meantime had been shattered in two bat- 
tles (see Map XHL), first at Franklin, where he fought 
with General Schofield (November 30), and then jjoo^.g 
at Nashville, where General Thomas, in two ^®*®*^" 
days of hard fighting (December 15-16), completed his 
defeat. A remnant only of his force fell back through 
Tennessee. 

338. Reelection of President Lincoln. November, 



544 SECESSION, CIVIL WAR, AND REUNION. 

1864. In the midst of these exciting events, which 
portended the exhaustion of the Confederacy, President 
Lincoln, in November, was reelected by a large majority 
over General McClellan, the Democratic nominee. Re- 
publican radicals had opposed the nomination of Lin- 
coln, making Chase and Fremont rival candidates ; but 
the larger body of the people had faith in the great man 
whom they affectionately called '' Father Abraham " 
and " Old Abe." 

Mr. Chase, after many disagreements with the Pre- 
sident, had resigned the Treasury Department in the 
previous June. In the following December he was 
appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the 
United States, succeeding Chief Justice Taney, who 
died October 12. 

339. Peace Conferences. Sherman moving north- 
ward. — Work of Congress. July-March, 1864-1865. 
Twice in July there had been unofficial peace confer- 
ences with Confederate officials by Horace Greeley, of 
the *' New York Tribune," at Niagara Falls, and by two 
adventurous gentlemen who went to Richmond and 
interviewed President Davis in person. The only result 
had been to show that, without disunion, no peace 
could be made. 

Fresh successes to the Union arms came early in the 
new year. Fort Fisher, at Wilmington, N. C, 
January 15, was taken on the 15th of January by military 
forces under General Terry, with the help of 
Admiral Porter's fleet. On the ist of February Sher- 
man started northward from Savannah, on another bold 
Charleston "^^^ch through hostile country, with no base of 
mrnary*' supplies. His movement would isolate Charles- 
17, 1865. |-Qj^^ ^^^ [^ ^y^g evacuated by the Confederates 
on the 17th. On the 22d of February Wilmington was 



THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 



545 



occupied by troops from the west under General Scho- 
field, and General Cox moved soon afterward from New- 







TRACK OF SHERMAN'S MARCH NORTHWARD FROM 
SAVANNAH. 

berne with forces to meet Sherman at Goldsboro, where 
the latter arrived on the 22d of March. 

In these months Congress had been doing notable 
work. The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution 
of the United States, which prohibits slavery 

r ^ T 1 1 TT c r> Thirteenth 

forever, was adopted by the House or Re- Amend- 
presentatives on the last day of January, having 
passed the Senate at the previous session, and it went 
then for ratification to the legislatures of the States.^ 

1 Already, before this action in Congress, Maryland and Missouri, 
the former by popular vote on a new constitution (October 12-13, 
1864), the latter by ordinance of a constitutional convention (Jan- 



546 SECESSION, CIVIL WAR, AND REUNION. 

Both houses passed an act to free the wives and children 
of persons mustered into the service of the United 
States, — all negro soldiers having been declared free 
long before. Another act established what was named 
the Freedmen's Bureau, for the care and protection of 
the liberated blacks, and for the relief of impoverished 
white refugees in the south. 

Renewed efforts to bring about some negotiation of 
peace were being made at this time by unofficial persons, 
and the President was persuaded by them to 
eflortsior meet Vice-President Stephens of the Confed- 
eracy and two others (February 3), for confer- 
ence, on a steamer at Fortress Monroe. The meeting, 
in which Secretary Seward took part, had no result. 

On the 4th of March Mr, Lincoln entered on the 
second term of his presidency, and delivered an inau- 
President gural address in which, as Mr. Carl Schurz 
seoon?'* has said, "he poured out the whole devotion 
Inaugural. ^^^ tenderness of his great soul. It had all 
the solemnity of a father's last admonition and blessing 
to his children before he lay down to die." "No 
American President," continues Mr. Schurz, "had 
ever spoken words like these to the American people. 
America never had a President who found such words 
in the depth of his heart." 

340. The Ending of the War.i March-May, 1865. 
Military events now moved rapidly toward the inevita- 
ble end of the exhausted Confederacy. Early in March 
Davis and Lee had determined to abandon Richmond, 
and they waited only for some drying of impassable 

uary 6, 1865), had abolished slavery. Two States reconstructed 
under President Lincoln's proclamation, Arkansas and Louisi- 
ana, had done the same ; Tennessee followed in February, 1865. 
1 See Map XII. 



THE WAR FOR THE UNION. S47 

roads before beginning a southwestward retreat. 
Grant anticipated their intention, and began a preven- 
tive movement on the 29th of March, with Sheridan 
(who had rejoined him ten days before) in advance. 
At Five Forks, on the ist of April, Sheridan 
broke Lee's Une of defence, and exposed the April 1, 
works at Petersburg to an assault by which 
part of them were carried the next day. Both Peters- 
burg and Richmond were evacuated that night, and 
nearly a third of the latter city was destroyed by a fire 
which started from the burning of public stores. With 
all that remained of his army, about 30,000 men, Lee 
began a retreat. Grant pursued with more than twice 
the number, and there was no escape. At Appomattox 
Court House, on the 9th of April, Lee gave up ^gg.g 
the attempt, and surrendered the remnant of aJ,"i^^®'' 
his little force. He and his worn veterans ■'•®®^- 
could yield with no shame, for they had fought against 
tremendous odds as stubbornly, as bravely, and as skil- 
fully as any army in the history of the world. It is a 
satisfaction to know that the terms of surrender were 
made generous by Grant. 

The surrender of General Lee was practically the 
endinsf of the war. General Johnston surren- 

1 1 1 . r 1 ^ , /- A .1 -r^ . End of the 

dered his forces on the 20th of April ; Presi- war, May, 

T^ • 1 . . 5- . 1865. 

dent Davis was taken prisoner m Georgia on 

the nth of May, and when that month closed there 

were no Confederates in arms. 

341. Last Speech of Lincoln. — His Views of 
"Reconstruction" Policy. April 11, 1865. President 
Lincoln was with General Grant, at City Point, when 
Richmond was given up, and he visited the stricken 
city twice. On the 9th of April he returned to Wash- 
ington, and on the nth, responding to a serenade at 



548 SECESSION, CIVIL WAR, AND REUNION. 

the White House, he made his last public speech. He 
spoke on the subject of the restoration or reconstruction 
of the States lately rebellious, reviewing the practical 
steps he had taken, and showing in his clear, plain way 
how useless and mischievous it would be to go into 
disputes as to *' whether the seceded States, so called, 
are in the Union or out of it." ** We all agree," he 
said, " that the seceded States, so called, are out of 
their proper practical relation with the Union, and that 
the sole object of the government, civil and military, in 
regard to those States, is to again get them into that 
proper practical relation. I believe that it is not only 
possible, but in fact easier, to do this without deciding 
or even considering whether these States have ever 
been out of the Union, than with it. Finding them- 
selves safely at home, it would be utterly immaterial 
whether they had ever been abroad." ^ Alluding to the 
question of the suffrage for freedmen he said : " I would 
myself prefer that it were now conferred on the very 
intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as sol- 
diers;" indicating that he would think it unwise to 
make a sudden gift of the ballot to the whole mass of 
emancipated slaves. 

On the 1 2th an order was issued to stop drafting, 
recruiting, and the purchase of military supplies. 

342. The Murder of President Lincoln. April 14, 
1865. The 14th of April brought the fourth anniver- 
sary of the surrender of Fort Sumter to Beauregard, 
and an impressive ceremony was performed at Charles- 
ton, in the ruins of the fort, that day. The flag lowered 
four years before was formally raised by General Ander- 
son, and Henry Ward Beecher delivered an address. 

1 The Supreme Court, in a case (Texas vs. White) that came 
before it in 1872, decided that the seceded States were never out 
of the Union. 

\ ' 



THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 549 

At Washington the memorable day was more mem- 
orably closed, and made an anniversary of national grief 
and horror for all time. That evening the careworn 
President sought an hour of relaxation by attending 
the theatre with his wife and a party of friends. As 
he sat in his box watching the play, an assassin, who 
had prepared for the opportunity, stole into the box 
from behind and shot him, leaping instantly to the 
stage and escaping before any one could realize what 
he had done. His bullet had entered the brain of the 
wisest and noblest man of his time, and extinguished 
consciousness, but not life. Borne to a neighboring 
house, the murdered President breathed until early 
morning, and then passed away. The feeling of the 
country that morning when the awful news burst upon 
it cannot be described. It seemed at the first shock as 
though chaos had come, — as though everything had 
been lost. 

With the news of the murder of the President came 
intelligence of an attempt on the life of Secretary 
Seward, made at the same hour. Mr. Seward 
had been thrown from his carriage a few days murder Mr. 
before, and had received injuries that confined 
him to his bed. A man pretending to have been sent 
by his physician obtained access to his chamber and 
stabbed him three times, but not fatally, in the neck 
and cheek. Two sons of the Secretary and a nurs^ 
were wounded seriously in a struggle, unarmed, with 
the assassin, and he, too, escaped. 

The President's murderer proved to be a well-known 
actor, John Wilkes Booth. He was tracked in 
his fliejht from the theatre and found, on the wnues 

. . Booth. 

25th of April, in a barn, near Fredericksburg, 

Va. Refusing to surrender, he was shot. The attempt 



550 SECESSION, CIVIL WAR, AND REUNION. 

to kill Mr. Seward had been made by one Lewis Powell, 
alias Payne, from Florida, who had acted in concert with 
Booth. A third confederate, George Atzerodt, was to 
have killed the Vice-President, Andrew Johnson, but 
failed to perform his part. The three were found to 
have belonged to a small band of conspirators, of which 
Booth was the leader, and which met at the house of a 
Mrs. Surratt. Their original plot was for kidnapping 
the President and taking him to Richmond ; but when 
the rebellion collapsed. Booth ordered an undertaking 
of murder, and his confederates obeyed. Except a 
son of Mrs. Surratt, who escaped from the country, all 
The plot were captured, and tried and convicted by a 
revealed. military court. Payne, Atzerodt, Mrs. Sur- 
ratt, and a fourth, named Herold, were hanged ; several 
others were imprisoned. Surratt, who escaped, was 
caught two years afterward in Egypt and brought to 
trial ; but the jury in his case disagreed. 

The fear awakened in many minds, that a desper- 
ate, widespread conspiracy of defeated Confederates had 
been formed to destroy the heads of national authority, 
was proved very soon to have no ground. The first 
desire of many, for stern dealing with the leaders of 
the defeated Confederacy, on charges of high treason, 
Jefferson yielded to wiser counsels, and no political 
Davis. prosecutions occurred. Mr. Davis was im- 
prisoned at Fortress Monroe for two years, then ad- 
mitted to bail, and shared in a general amnesty, pro- 
claimed finally in December, 1868. 

343. Statistics of the War. The most stupendous 
of civil wars was at an end. More than 3,000,000 men 
had been enlisted in its armies, from first to last, 
2,200,000 under the national flag, 1,000,000 under that 
of the Confederacy. Of those who fought for the 



THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 551 

Union, 360,000 had given their lives to the cause, 
110,000 in battle, or from wounds received Smiles 
in battle, 224,000 from disease, and the re- JeaSJ,' 
mainder from accidents and other causes of ^o^**"- 
various kinds. On the other side the deaths from all 
causes are estimated to have numbered 250,000 or 
300,000. In the four years of war there were 2265 
engagements, large and small, in 330 of which the 
Union loss exceeded 100 men. 

The navy, insignificant when the war began, had 
grown to 700 ships when it closed, and 75 of ^j^g 
them were iron-clad. The Confederates had ^^^®8- 
put II cruisers afloat, and the property they had de- 
stroyed was reckoned at nearly $18,000,000. 

The money cost of the war to the government was 
$3,250,000,000, and it left a national debt of i^Q^gy 
$2,808,549,000. The Confederate expenditure ^°^*' 
was about $1,500,000,000. Of the value of property 
destroyed in the war, no estimate can be made. 

The great armies of the Union had been created with 

such speed that 60,000 and 80,000 men were sometimes 

put into the field in single months. Even more rapidly 

they were dissolved. By the middle of Novem- 

r.^ r^ / 1 1 1 r Dlssolntlon 

ber, 1865, 800,000 men had been mustered from of the 

•^ . armies. 

service and returned to their homes. Before 
the dissolution of the two principal armies, the Army 
of the Potomac and the Army of Sherman, they were 
marched through Washington, on two successive days 
(May 23-24), passing in review before the President, 
affording a military spectacle of grand impressiveness, 
but such as this country will be happy if it has no oppor- 
tunity to witness again. 

Of Confederate soldiery, 174,000 were formally sur- 
rendered at the close of the war, and 63,000 in the 



552 SECESSION, CIVIL WAR, AND REUNION. 

camps of the prisoners of war were set free. There is 
no account of the many who went from the lost field to 
their homes without formal leave. 



TOPICS AND SUGGESTED READING AND RESEARCH. 

322. Preparing to strike at Slavery. 

Topics and References. 

1. Confiscation and liberation act of Congress. Nicolay and 
Hay, vi. 97-108 ; Burgess, Civil War, ii. 75-76; McPherson, 196- 
198. 

2. The President's power to emancipate slaves as a war mea- 
sure. Whiting, ch. iii. 

3. Lincoln's conviction of duty regarding the use of his power 
to strike down slavery. 4. His proclamation of emancipation 
prepared. 5. Reasons for deferring it. Lincoln, ii. 508-509. 227- 
228, 396-399, 479-480; Carpenter, 20-24; Hart, Conteinp's, iv. 
397-402; Hart, Chase, 264-269; Nicolay and Hay, vi. ch. vi.; 
Tarbell, ii. 113-120; Rhodes, iv. 67-76; Schurz, Z/z/r^/;/. 78-86; 
Morse, Lincoln, ii. 99-116; Blaine, i. 435-440; Burgess, Civil 
War, ii. 72-75, 84-87. 

6. The forming of negro regiments. Morse. Zz>/^<?///, ii. 15-18; 
Nicolay and Hay, vi. ch. xx. 

323. Lee's Crushing Defeat of Pope and Invasion 

of Maryland. 

Topics and References. 

I. Pope's plans frustrated. 2. His army driven back to Wash- 
ington. Ropes. Pope, ch. i.-xiii. ; Paris, ii. 250-303; Long, ch. 
xi. ; Cooke, y^7r>('j-^;/, 249-307 ; McClellan, ch. xxx.-xxxi. ; Rhodes, 
iv. 1 13-134; Nicolay and Hay, vi. ch. i. ; Morse, Lincoln, ii. 73-80 ; 
Hart, Contempts, iv. 342-346. 

3. Lee's invasion of Maryland. 4. McClellan against Lee in 
Maryland. — End of the invasion. Palfrey, ch. i.-iii.; Long, ch. 
xii. ; McClellan. ch. xxxii.-xl. ; Paris, ii. 303-359; Cooke, Jackson, 
307-348; Rhodes, iv. 134-156; Morse, Lincoln, ii. 80-92; Hart, 
Contempts, iv. 346-351 ; Nicolay and Hay, vi. 20-29, 131-H6; Lin- 
coln, ii. 244, 245-246, 249-252. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 553 

324. Emancipation proclaimed by President 

Lincoln. 

Topics and References. 

I. First proclamation, September 22, 1862 (text in Lincoln, ii, 
237-238). 2. Second proclamation, January i, 1863 (text in Lin- 
coln, ii. 285, 287-288). Nicolay and Hay, vi. ch. viii., xix. ; Tarbell, 
ii. 120-126; Burgess, Civil Wa?'^ ii. 97-101; Morse, Lincoln, ii. 
116-121, 130-133; McPherson, 227-233; Hart, Chase, 270-271; 
Rhodes, iv. 157-163. 

326. Dark Days. 

Topics and References. 

1. Bragg in Kentucky. — His defeat at Perryville. Coppde, 78- 
88; Paris, ii. 360-395; Cist, ch.v. ; Rhodes, iv. 173-181; Battles 
and Leaders, iii. 1-69, 600-609; Nicolay and Hay, vi. ch. xiii. 

2. Battles of Grant's army. Battles and Leaders, ii. 717-759; 
Grant, i. 325-350 ; Sherman, i. 287-292 ; F. V. Greene, The Mis- 
sissippi, ch. ii. ; Cist, ch. vi. ; Paris, ii. 396-417. 

3. Views of foreign governments. 4. The French in Mexico. 
5. The Confederacy favored by the British government. 6. The 
Alabama and other " commerce-destroyers." Nicolay and Hay, 
vi. ch. ii.-iv. ; Rhodes, iv. 76-95, 337-394; McPherson, 348-354; 
Lothrop, 376-394; Burgess, Civil War, ii. 288-311; J. Davis, ii. 
245-252; Soley, ch. vii. 

7. Party opposition in the north. 8. " War Democrats '" and 
" Copperheads." g. Military arrests and interference with free 
speech. Rhodes, iv. 224-226, 163-172, 245-255; Morse, Lin- 
coln, ii. 95-99, 183-194; Nicolay and Hay, vii. ch. xii. ; Paris, iii. 
404-406, 418-420; ii. 678-684; Burgess, i. 232-236; ii. 214-219, 
222-223; ^(^hnrz, Lijico In, 109-112; Blaine, i. 488-493; McPher- 
son, 152-194 ; Lincoln, ii. 123-125, 239, 345-352, 360-363, 406-407, 

541-543- 

10. Elections in 1862. Blaine, i. 441-444; Morse, Lincoln, W. 

121-125. 

Research. — Disloyal secret societies and conspiracies in the 

north, and plots by Confederate agents in Canada. McPherson, 

445-454; Nicolay and Hay, viii. ch. i. 



554 THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 

326. More National Reverses. 

Topics and References. 

1. Burnside's repulse at Fredericksburg. Palfrey, ch. iv. ; Paris, 
ii. 559-605; Rhodes, iv. 184-202; Battles and Leaders, iii. 70-142 ; 
Long, ch. xiii. ; Cooke. Jackson, 365-388 ; Nicolay and Hay, vi. ch. 
ix.-x, ; Hart, Contempts, iv, 351-356. 

2. Battle of Stone River. Cist, ch. viii. ; Battles and Leaders, 
iii. 613-634; Paris, ii. 49S-535 : Coppde, 89-117. 

3. Grant and Sherman preparing to attack Vicksburg. Grant, 
i. ch. XXX.; Sherman, i. 307-331 ; F. V. Greene, The Mississippi, 
ch. iii.; Paris, ii. 443-472; Mahan, TJie Gulf, 1 14-169. 

4. Hooker's defeat at Chancellorsville. Paris, iii. i-i 23 : Double- 
day, 1-84; Nicolay and Hay, vii. ch. iv. ; Long, ch. xiv. ; Cooke, 
Jackson, 397-464; Battles and Leaders, \\\. 152-233; Rhodes, iv. 
256-267; Hart. C^;//^w/"' J, iv. 359-363 ; Lincoln, ii. 306-307,322, 

336-337- 

5. Passage of a conscription act. 6. Creation of the national 
bank system. 7. Effect of the "greenback currency ** on the cost 
of the war. Rhodes, iv. 236-239; Nicolay and Hay, vi, 240-247, 
vii. 3-16 ; Paris, iii. 407-416; Hart, Chase^ 274-283; Blaine, i. ch. 
xxii.; Morse, Lincoln, ii. 194-198. 

327. Lee in Pennsylvania.- — Gettysburg. — 
Vicksburg. 

Topics and Referenxes. 

I. Lee's second campaign of invasion. 2. Meade in command 
of the Army of the Potomac. 3. Battle of Gettysburg and retreat 
of Lee. Battles and Leaders, iii. 244-433 ; Doubleday, 87-210 ; 
Paris, iii. 451-694; Nicolay and Hay. vii. ch. viii.-ix. ; Long, ch. 
XV.; Rhodes, iv. 268-297; Morse, Lincoln, ii. 143-152; Lincoln, 
ii. 368-369; Hart, Contemp's. iv. 372-376, 

4. The doubly memorable 4th of July. 5. The taking of Vicks- 
burg by Grant. 6. Surrender of Port Hudson to Banks. 7. The 
Mississippi reopened throughout. Battles and Leaders, iii. 462- 
598; F. V. Greene, The Mississippi, ch. iv.-viii. ; Paris, iii. 178- 
402; Rhodes, iv. 299-319; Grant, i. ch. xxxi.-xxxviii. ; Sherman, 
i. ch. xiii.; Lincoln, ii. 366-368; Morse, Lincoln, ii. 157-163; 
Nicolay and Hay, vii. ch. vi.-vii., ch. x. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 555 

328. Draft Riot in New York. 

Topics and References. 

I. Four days of terror in the city of New York. Rhodes, iv. 
320-332; Nicolay and Hay, vii. 16-26; Paris, iv. 2-7; Lincoln, 
ii. 381-382; Hart, Contempts, iv. 376-381. 

329. Operations against Charleston. — Quiet in 

Virginia. 
Topics and References. 

I. Admiral Dupont's repulse from Charleston harbor. 2. Land- 
ing on Morris Island. — Assault on Fort Wagner. 3. Final evacu- 
ation of Fort Wagner. 4. Bombardment of Charleston. Battles 
and Leaders^ iv. 1-74 ; Ammen, ch. v., vii. ; Nicolay and Hay, vii. 
ch. iii., XV.; Paris, iii. 141-165, 349-380 ; Rhodes, iv. 332-336. 

5. Ineffectual campaigning in Virginia. Paris, iii. 695-828; 
Long, ch. xvi. ; Battles and Leaders^ iv. 81-96; Nicolay and Hay, 
viii. ch. ix. 

330. Critical Situation in Tennessee. — Grant to 

the Rescue. 

Topics and References. 

1. Burnside reaches Knoxville. J. D. Cox, Atlanta^ ch. ii. ; 
Paris, iv. 45-53; Nicolay and Hay, viii. 158-170. 

2. Rosecrans in Chattanooga. 3. Battle of Chickamauga and 
the result. — Rosecrans besieged in Chattanooga. Cist, ch. ix.- 
xii. ; Coppde, 118-164; Battles and Leaders, iii. 635-671 ; Grant, 
i. ch. xl. ; Paris, iv. 53-192 ; Nicolay and Hay, viii. ch. iii.-iv. ; 
Rhodes, iv. 395-401 ; Morse, Lincoln, ii. 163-166; Hart, Contempts, 
iv. 381-386. 

4. The shifting of western generals. — Grant's enlarged com- 
mand. 5. Grant's operations at Chattanooga. — Battles of Mis- 
sionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain. 6. Defeat of Bragg and 
Longstreet. — Deliverance of East Tennessee. Paris, iv. 193-330 ; 
Grant, i. ch. xl.-xlii. ; ii. ch. i.-iii. ; Sherman, i. 374-396 ; Battles 
and Leaders, m. 676-751; Cist, ch. xiii.-xiv. ; Coppde, 165-198; 
Nicolay and Hay, viii. 121-157, 170-188. 

7. President Lincoln's Gettysburg address. Lincoln, ii. 439; 
Nicolay and Hay, viii. ch. vii.; Morse, Lincobi^ ii. 214-216; 
Rhodes, iv. 297-298. 



556 THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 

331. Amnesty ofifered by President Lincoln. — His 
•* Reconstruction " Plan. 

Topics and References. 

I. Terms of the President's proclamation (text in Lincoln, ii. 
442-444). 2. His plans for the reestablishment of loyal state 
governments. 3. Congressional view of it. — Radical objections. 
4. The radical theory. 5. Reconstruction act of Congress. — Not 
signed by the President. 6. His proclamation submitting it to the 
country (text in Lincoln, ii. 545). 7. His pohcy sustained by 
public opinion. Lincoln, ii. 454-456. 504-505 : Nicolay and Hay, ix. 
104-127, 448-456; Morse. Lincoln, ii. 217-237, 295-29S ; Blaine, 
ii. 37-46: Storey, 2S2-289; Schurz, Lincoln^ 95-96. 
Research. — Reconstruction proceedings in Arkansas. Louisiana, 
and Tennessee, under President Lincoln's proclamation ; and 
proceedings to abolish slavery in Maryland a3d ^Missouri. Nico- 
lay and Hay. \-iii. ch. xvi.-xx. 

332. Grant made Lieutenant-General, in Chief 

Command. 

Topics and References. 

I. The revived rank. 2. Grant in general command, with per- 
sonal direction in Virginia. 3. Sherman in the western command. 
4. Meade leading the Army of the Potomac. 5. Sheridan as 
cavaln,- commander. 6. The general plan of campaign. 7. 
Strength of the main armies. Humphreys, ch. i, : Nicolay and 
Hay, viii. 326-357: Battles and Leaders, iv. 97-117; Grant, ii. 
44^2 ; Morse. Lincoln, ii. 277-279 : Rhodes, iv. 433-439 ? J- D. Cox, 
Atlanta, ch. iii. 

333. Grant's Movement on Richmond. 

Topics and References. 

I. Battles from the Rapidan to the Chickahominy. 2. Repulse 
at Cold Harbor. 3. General Butler's movement. Grant ii. ch.vi., 
viii.-xiii.: Battles and Leaders, iv. iiS-246: Humphreys, ch. ii.- 
vi.: Long, ch. xvii. : Nicolay and Hay, viii. ch. xiv.-xv. : Rhodes, 
iv. 440-44S ; Morse, Lincoln^ ii. 279-282; Hart, Conternp's, iv. 412- 
415. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 557 

334. Sherman's Movement on Atlanta. 

Topics and References. 

I. Battles of the campaign. — Siege of Atlanta. — Death of 
General McPherson. Sherman, ii. ch. xvi.-xviii. ; J. D. Cox, 
Atlanta^ ch. iv.-xiv. ; Grant, ii. ch. vii. ; Battles and Leaders, iv. 
250-344; Nicolay and Hay, ix. ch. i., xii. ; Rhodes, iv. 448-456, 

511-513- 

335. Grant before Petersburg. — Sheridan in the 
Shenandoah Valley. 

Topics and References. 

1. Operations of the Army of the Potomac. Grant, ii. 174-204; 
Humphreys, ch. vii.-xii. ; Battles atid Leaders^ iv. 533-589; Long, 
369-401. 

2. General Early in the Shenandoah and invading Maryland. 
3. Sheridan's campaign against Early. — The valley laid waste. 
Pond, ch. iv.-xiv. ; Grant, ii. 204-224; Battles and Leaders, iv. 492- 
530; Long, ch. xviii.; Nicolay and Hay, ix. ch. vii., xiii.-xiv. • 
Hart, Contempts, iv. 422-427 ; Morse, Lincoln, ii. 282-286. 

336. Naval Exploits. 

Topics and References. 

1. Destruction of the Alabama. Soley, 205-213 ; Battles and 
Leaders, \v. 600-625; Nicolay and Hay, ix. 142-157; Hart, Con- 
te?np^s, iv. 416-418. 

2. Farragut's victory in Mobile Bay. Mahan, The Gulf, ch. viii. ; 
Battles and Leaders, iv. 379-411; Nicolay and Hay, ix. ch. x. ; 
Hart, Contempts, iv. 418-421. 

Research. — The daring exploit of Lieutenant Gushing in de- 
stroying the Confederate ram Albemarle, at Plymouth, N. C, 
October 27, 1864. Battles and Leaders, iv. 634-642; Soley, 97- 
105. 

337. Sherman's March to the Sea. 

Topics and References. 

I. The fate of Atlanta. 2. Hood's raid northward. 3. Sher- 
man's march to Savannah. Sherman, ii. ch. xix.-xxi. ; J. D. Cox, 
Atlanta, ch. xv.-xvii. ; J. D. Cox, March to the Sea, ch. i.-iii. 



558 THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 

Battles and Leaders, iv. 663-680; Grant, ii. ch. xvii. ; Nicolay and 
Hay, ix. ch. xx. ; Hart, Contempts, iv. 428-432. 

4. Shattering of Hood's army in Tennessee. J. D. Cox, March 
to the Sea, ch. iv.-vii. ; Grant, ii. ch. xviii. ; Nicolay and Hay, x. 
ch. i. ; Hart, Conteinp'^s, iv. 432-436. 

338. Reelection of President Lincoln. 

Topics and References. 

I. President Lincoln's large majority over McClellan. 2. Radical 
Republican opposition to Lincoln. Rhodes, iv. 456-470, 475-487, 
517-539; Blaine, i. ch. xxiv. ; Tarbell, ii. ch. xxviii. ; Morse, Z/«- 
coln, ii. 286-295 ; Schurz, Li?icoln, 96-102; Nicolay and Hay, viii. 
ch. xii. ; ix. ch. ii.-v., xi., xvi. ; Hart, Chase, 307-312; Lincoln, ii. 
594-596. 

339. Peace Conferences. — Sherman moving north- 
ward. — Work of Congress. 

Topics and References. 

1. Efforts for peace. Nicolay and Hay, ix. ch. viii.-ix. ; Rhodes, 

iv. 513-515- 

2. Union successes. — Capture of Fort Fisher. — Sherman in 
motion again. — Evacuation of Charleston. Sherman, ii. ch. xxii.- 
xxiii. ; Grant, ii. ch. xix.-xx ; J. D. Cox, March to the Sea, ch. viii.- 
xi.; Battles and Leaders, iv. 642-661, 683-705 ; Ammen, 215-244: 
Nicolay and Hay, x. ch. iii. 

3. Thirteenth Constitutional Amendment. Morse, Lincoln, ii. 
316-328; Nicolay and Hay, X. ch. iv. ; Blaine, i. 504-507 ; Lincoln, 
ii. 633-634; Hart, Co7itemp's, iv. 465-467. 

4. The Freedmen's Bureau. Barnes, ch. v.-viii., xii. ; WilHams, 
ii. pt. 8, ch. xxi.-xxii. ; Herbert, ch. i. 

5. President Lincoln's meeting with Vice-President Stephens. 
Lincoln, ii. 640-651 ; Nicolay and Hay, x. ch. v.-vi. ; Morse, Lm- 
coln, ii. 302-311. 

6. President Lincoln's second inaugural address (text in Lincoln, 
ii. 656-657). Nicolay and Hay, x. ch. vii. ; Morse, Lincoln, ii. 311- 
315; Schurz, Lincoln, 103-104. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 559 

340. The Ending of the War. 

Topics and References. 

I. Lee and Davis preparing for retreat. 2. Lee's line of de- 
fences broken by Sheridan. 3. Evacuation of Petersburg and 
Richmond. 4. Lee's retreat and Grant's pursuit. — The surrender 
at Appomattox Court House. Grant, ii. ch. xxii.-xxv. ; Long, 402- 
427 ; Battles and Leaders^ iv. 705-753 ; Humphreys, ch. xiii.-xiv. ; 
Nicolay and Hay, x. ch. viii.-xi.; Morse, Lincoln^ ii. 329-340; 
J. Davis, ii. 661-678; Hart, Co?ite?np'Sj iv. 437-444. 

5. Johnston's surrender. — Capture of Jefferson Davis. — End 
of the war. Sherman, ii. 342-373; Grant, ii. ch. xxvi. ; J. Davis, 
ii. 678-705 ; Battles afid Leaders, iv. 754-767 ; J. D. Cox, March to 
the Sea, ch. xiii. ; Nicolay and Hay, x. ch. xii.-xiii., xvii. 

341. Last Speech of Lincoln. — His Views of 
Reconstruction Policy. 

Topics and References. 

I. The President's visits to Richmond. 2. His speech at 
Washington, April 11. 3. His treatment of the question whether 
the seceded States are in or out of the Union. 4. His opinion as 
to giving the suffrage to the freedmen. Lincoln, ii. 672-675 ; 
Nicolay and Hay, ix. 456-463 ; Blaine, ii. 46-50 ; Hart, Contemp''s, 
iv. 462-464. 

342. The Murder of President Lincoln. 

Topics and References. 

I. Anniversary of the surrender of Fort Sumter. 2. The mur- 
der of the President that evening. 3. Attempt on the life of 
Secretary Seward. 4. Pursuit, discovery, and death of the Presi- 
dent's murderer. 5. The plot and the plotters of the crime. — 
Their fate. Nicolay and Hay, x. ch. xiv.-xv. ; Tarbell, ii. 232-244 ; 
Morse, Lincoln, ii. 342-354. 

6. No political prosecutions after the war. 7. Imprisonment, 
release, and amnesty of Jefferson Davis. Hart, Chase, 351-354; 
Nicolay and Hay, x. 274-276. 

Research. — Estimates of Lincoln. Morse, Lincoln, ii. 355-358; 
Nicolay and Hay, x. ch. xviii. ; Schurz, Lincoln, 11 5-1 17. 



560 THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 

343. Statistics of the War. 

Topics and Referenxes. 

I. Number of men in arms. 2. Death-roll of the war. 3. Num- 
ber of battles, large and small. 4. Federal navy of the war. 
5. Confederate cruisers and their work. 6. Money cost of the 
war. 7. Creation and dissolution of armies. Blaine, i. 549-562, 
ii. 27-33 *> Nicolay and Hay, x. 329-330, 335-340 ; Phisterer, 62- 
219; Battles and Leaders^ iv. 767-768; Grant, ii. 351-355. 

8. Grand final review at Washington. Grant, ii. 378-380; 
Sherman, ii. 375-380 ; Blaine, ii. 18-21 ; Nicolay and Hay, x. 330- 
335- 

Research. — The organized work of the United States Sanitary 
Commission and the United States Christian Commission, in 
assisting the government to supply the wants and to care for the 
soldiers. J. W. Draper, iii. ch. '^'j ; Paris, iii. 432-438 ; Stilld ; 
Livermore ; Wormeley ; E. P. Smith. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE RESTORED UNION. 1865-1880. 

344. Vice-President Andrew Johnson becomes 
President. — His Conflict with Congress. April- 
December, 1865. Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, 
elected Vice-President in 1864, took the oath of office as 
President on the morning of April 15, 1865. He had 
been a senator from Tennessee when that State joined 
the Confederacy, but refused to recognize the secession, 
and kept his senatorial seat to the end of his Royalty of 
term. After Nashville was occupied by the j^SlJJ^ 
national forces, in 1862, he was appointed mill- I861-I865. 
tary governor of the State. As a loyal southerner, the 
Republicans thought it good policy to make him Vice- 
President, though his political opinions had been those of 
a Democrat, and opposed on some points to their own. 
There was now a situation like that which occurred when 
Vice-President Tyler became President, and the result 
was much the same. 

President Johnson retained the cabinet of his pre- 
decessor, and took up the work of reconstructing gov- 
ernments in the lately rebellious States on substantially 
the lines that President Lincoln had laid down. On the 
29th of May he issued a proclamation of amnesty and 
pardon, differing little from Lincoln's except in addi- 
tions to the list of excluded classes. On the same day he 
issued the first of a series of proclamations which ap- 
pointed provisional governors to conduct the prescribed 



562 SECESSION, CIVIL WAR, AND REUNION. 

process of reconstruction in the several States. The 
ThePresi- "^^'ork was in progress everywhere by the mid- 
Recon- ^^^ °^ J^^^)'' ^^^^ before Congress came to- 
measSres gather, in December, all the States except 
1865. Texas had adopted constitutions prohibiting 

slavery, had organized state governments, and nine of 
them had ratified the Thirteenth Amendment to the Con- 
stitution of the United States (see sect. 339). Without 
some of these ratifications, that national prohibition of 
slavery could not have acquired force. ^ 

In several of the States thus reconstructed, the legis- 
latures had proceeded immediately to pass laws for 
regulating the labor of the freed negroes, with provisions 
that seemed likely to take most of their lately given free- 
dom away. Had President Lincoln lived, and had he 
found it impossible to secure proper protection for the 
freedmen by the methods of reconstruction that he first 
proposed, he would undoubtedly have modified his course ; 
and he would without doubt have kept the confidence 
and support of the people in what he did. But Presi- 
unpopu- ^^^^^ Johnson had none of the qualities of mind 
^sfdVnt ^'^^ temper that gave Lincoln his extraordi- 
joimson. j^^j.y po^ver. His course tended from the be- 
ginning to alarm the ruling party and drive it into the 
extremely radical policy from which Lincoln had been 
holding it back. 

345. Congressional Reconstruction. 1865-1871. In 
the bitter quarrel that ensued between Congress and the 
President, his reconstructive work was undone, and most 
of his executive authority was taken practically away. 
By majorities so large as to overcome his vetoes. Con- 
gress passed a series of radical acts. A Civil Rights 

^ The adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment by three fourths 
of the States was proclaimed December iS, 1S65 



THE RESTORED UNION. 563 

Bill, made law in April, 1866, affirmed the citizenship 
of the freed negroes and gave them the protection of 
United states courts, and military and naval forces, 
to prevent state interference with their equal privileges 
and rights. In June a joint resolution recom- Fourteenth 
mended to the States a Fourteenth Constitu- ^n?*' 
tional Amendment, embodying the principles I866-I868. 
of the Civil Rights Act ; ^ providing, further, for a reduc- 
tion of the congressional representation of any State that 
should deny the elective franchise to any male citizens of 
voting age ; also excluding prominent officials of the late 
Confederacy from Federal offices until Congress should 
pardon them, and forbidding the payment of any debt 
incurred in aid of rebellion against the United States. 
The reconstructed legislature of Tennessee ratified this 
Fourteenth Amendment so promptly that Congress, in 
July, declared that State restored to its former relations 
to the Union. 

The congressional elections of 1866 turned on the 
issue between Congress and the President, and the for- 
mer was sustained. Rejection of the Fourteenth Amend- 
ment by all the lately Confederate States except Tennes- 
see, and a serious riot in New Orleans, helped to array 
popular feeling against the President's recon- congress 
structive work. The result was the election ?heefe^^^^° 
of a new Congress (the Fortieth), more radical ^io^s.isee. 
than the one whose contest with the Executive it would 
take up. That contest was reopened vigorously when the 
final session of the Thirty-ninth Congress began. By a 

^ In what are known as the Louisiana " Slaughter House Cases," 
the Supreme Court decided in 1S73 that citizenship of the State 
is distinct from citizenship of the United States, and that the right 
of a State to regulate the privileges of the former is not affected by 
this amendment. 



5^4 SECESSION, CIVIL WAR, AND REUNION. 

law known as the Tenure of Office Act, the power of the 
President to make removals from office was rendered de- 
pendent on senatorial consent. Practical independence 
of the President was conferred on Lieutenant-General 
Grant. Universal manhood suffrage, without regard to 
color, was established in the District of Columbia and in 
the Territories. Nebraska was admitted to the Union. 

Finally, on the next to the last day of its existence, 
this aggressive Congress passed a •* Military Reconstruc- 
tion Act," which swept away the structures 

The Mill- . • 1 1 1 T^ . -, 

taryRecon- of State government raised by the President, 
Act, March, and divided all the late Confederate States (ex- 

1867 

cept Tennessee, now fully restored) into five 
military districts, each to be commanded by a general of 
the army, under whose direction a new reorganization of 
state governments was to take place. In the proceed- 
ings for that purpose the suffrage was to be exercised by 
blacks and whites on equal terms of sworn loyalty to the 
Constitution and the Union, with an extensive disfran- 
chisement of those white people who had taken part in the 
rebellion. When any State so reorganized should have 
adopted a satisfactory constitution, and should have rat- 
ified the proposed Fourteenth Amendment (hitherto 
rejected by all but Tennessee), and said amendment 
should have become part of the Constitution of the 
United States, such State would be declared entitled to 
representation in Congress, and not before. By a sup- 
plementary act the new Congress, convened on the 4th 
of March, added more strictness to these provisions, 
and they were set in operation at once. Within little 
more than a year, compliance with the requirements of 
the act was secured in seven States, and they were admit- 
ted to representation in June, 1868.^ The process was 

1 On the 28th of July the Fourteenth Amendment was proclaimed 
to have been ratified by three fourths of the States. 



THE RESTORED UNION. 5^5 

slower in Mississippi, Texas, and Virginia, the last named 
of which regained seats in Congress in January, 1871. 

The three laggard States were required to ratify not 
only the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, 
but a Fifteenth, which Congress proposed in p^j^ggj^^j^ 
February, 1869. This last of the reconstruc- ^^jf^^^" 
tion amendments forbids the United States or 1869-1870. 
any State to deny or abridge the right of citizens of 
the United States to vote " on account of race, color, or 
previous condition of servitude." It was ratified by the 
needed number of States, and added to the Constitution 
by proclamation on March 30, 1870. 

346. The Working of the ••Reconstruction" Mea- 
sures. 1866-1876. Serious evils attended the reorgan- 
ization and working of state governments in the circum- 
stances created by the Reconstruction Act. The negro 
vote, dominant for a time almost everywhere, was influ- 
enced and controlled to a great extent by political ad- 
venturers, many of whom went into the southern States 
from the north. Such northern workers in southern 
politics were called " carpet-basfsrers ; " ^ others 

c ^ 1 , ^ ^ .. ^ ,y " Carpet- 

01 the same class, branded as " scalawags, were i)aggers" 
a home product in the south. Between them "scaia- 
they brought about, in several unfortunate 
States, a scandalous reign of corruption, extravagance, 
and almost open plundering of the public, which went on 
for several years. Resistance by violent measures, to 
intimidate colored voters, keep them from the polls, and 

1 The term "carpet-bagger" signified one who went into the 
south, not to settle permanently, but to use the opportunity for 
getting office and to engage in dishonest schemes. Large numbers 
of a very different class sought homes in the southern States with 
an enterprising eye to the development of their resources and the 
restoration of their prosperity. 



566 SECESSION, CIVIL WAR, AND REUNION. 

frighten them out of public offices, was resorted to by 
the whites. Secret societies for the purpose were formed, 
under different names, and these were all finally merged 
in one formidable organization known as the Ku-Klux 
Klan, which terrorized many regions of the south for 
half a dozen years after 1867. 

347. Impeachment of the President. 1868. The 
triumph of Congress in reconstruction did not end its 
conflict with the President. Several members of his 
cabinet, including Secretary Stanton, had disapproved 
his course, and all of those except Stanton resigned. 
At length the President attempted to remove Stanton, 

in defiance of the Tenure of Office Act, which 

Attempt to 

remove he deemed unconstitutional ; whereupon, in Feb- 

Stanton. ' ^ ' 

ruary, 1S68, the representatives impeached him 
for trial before the Senate, exercising for the first time, 
against a President, the power conferred by the Consti- 
tution in Art. I. sect. ii. clause 5, sect. iii. clauses ^-Jy 
and Art. II. sect. iv. This was a grave proceeding, new 
to the experience of the country, and it was anxiously 
watched. The trial of the impeachment, begun on the 
Trial and 5^^^ ^^ March and ended on the 1 6th of May, 
^°^®" resulted in a failure to convict, by one less than 

the necessary two thirds of the senatorial vote. 

348. Incidents of the Period. 1866-1867. After 

ten years of persevering effort and many costly 
cable, failures, the first successful telegraph cable was 

stretched across the Atlantic, from Newfound- 
land to the coast of Ireland, and opened for public use 
on the 4th of August, 1S66. 

The public was furnished with a brief excitement at 
the end of May, that year, by an Irish organization called 
the Fenian Brotherhood, formed with objects of hostility 
to the government of Great Britain. A body of about 900 



THE RESTORED UNION. 567 

armed Fenians assembled at Buffalo, crossed the Niagara 
River on the 31st of May, and invaded Canada, penian 
with objects that were never made clear. After ^ada^ "* 
a slight skirmish with Canadian troops they re- •^®®®" 
turned to American soil. The government of the United 
States was tardy in taking measures to prevent this breach 
of the peace. 

In March, 1867, the French emperor was warned out 
of Mexico, where he had been conducting an audacious 
war of conquest since 1 862. His troops had entered the 
country in cooperation with English and Spanish forces, 
to enforce a payment of debts. The English 

1 r- • 1 1 r 1 French In 

and Spanish o^overnments drew out ot the ex- Mexico, 

,. . , , r 11. T -AT 1 1862-1867. 

pedition when they found that Louis Napoleon 
had further designs, and he proceeded alone to subjugate 
the Mexican people, regardless of remonstrances from 
the United States. He felt assured that the American 
Republic was going to pieces, and that he could establish 
himself in influence on this side of the world. He had 
succeeded so far as to overthrow the Mexican Republic 
and set up an empire, of which Archduke Maximilian, of 
Austria, was persuaded to accept the throne, — a throne 
supported by the bayonets of France. When the United 
States became free from domestic war, its government 
renewed expostulations on the subject, with such em- 
phasis that the French army supporting Maximilian was 
withdrawn (March, 1867). Two months later the unfor- 
tunate Austrian prince was defeated by the Mexicans, 
taken prisoner, tried by court-martial, and shot. 

What is proving to be a valuable as well as a large 

addition to the territory of the United States 

■, ' HT r,^i ^ ^ •^iT-> Purchase 

was made in May, 1867, by a treaty with Rus- oi Alaska, 

sia, negotiated by Secretary Seward, purchas- 
ing Alaska (see Map XV.) for the sum of $7,200,000. 



568 SECESSION, CIVIL WAR, AND REUNION. 

349. Election of General Grant. — Conditions in 
the South. 1868-1872. The presidential election of 
1 868 was carried by the Republican party electing Gen- 
eral Grant over ex-Governor Horatio Seymour, of New- 
York. The latter carried New York, New Jersey, and 
Oregon, of the northern States. 

During most of the period of the presidency of General 
Grant a turbulent and deplorable condition of things 
Disorder existed in many of the southern States. Their 
souuf local governments were bad ; a large part of 

1868-1872. ^\^Q[y ^vhite citizens were intensely hostile to the 
state authorities, to the negro voters, to the politicians 
who led the negroes, and generally to all who upheld the 
existing condition of things. Frequent conflicts and acts 
of violence challenged Congress to sustain its previous 
measures by severe penal laws, known as " force bills," 
passed in 1870 and 1871. The Federal executive was 
called upon in several instances to interfere, in obedience 
to the fourth section of Article IV. of the Constitution ; 
but President Grant seems to have avoided such inter- 
vention when he could. In 1872 political violence had 
subsided so far that Congress, that year, modified its 
harshest legislation and restored the full franchises of 
citizenship to large classes by a general amnesty act. 
Within the next two or three years a change for the . 
better, in the character of their legislatures and admin- 
istrative officials, was brought about in all the southern 
States. 

350. Rupture in the Republican Party. — Reelec- 
tion of President Grant. 1872. Beginning about 1870, 
considerable dissatisfaction with the conduct of the Ad- 
ministration and with the course of Congress in carrying 
out its reconstruction policy arose in the Republican 
party, and a positive rupture appeared in the presidential 



THE RESTORED UNION. 569 

election of 1872. The dissatisfied section of the party, 
taking the name of Liberal Republicans, formed 
a coalition with the main body of the Demo- Repubu- 
cratic party, and Horace Greeley, editor of the ' 
" New York Tribune," was nominated for President as 
the candidate of both. Dissenting Democrats nominated 
Charles O' Conor, of New York. The regular Repub- 
licans renominated President Grant, and elected him by a 
majority much larger than in 1868. 

351. Incidents of the Period of President Grant. 
1869-1876. Early in the administration of President 
Grant, an opportunity for the annexation of the q^ 
Dominican Republic, in the island of San Do- {reSyI^° 
mingo, or Hayti, was presented to him, and he ^^^^' 
thought it should be improved. Without the approval of 
his cabinet he negotiated an annexation treaty with the 
Dominican president then in power (i 869), and pressed the 
acceptance of it on the Senate very earnestly, but with- 
out success. Opinion generally was against the measure. 

From the beginning of the ravages committed by the 
Alabama and other Confederate cruisers fitted out in 
British ports, the American government had been claim- 
ing indemnity from England, Two conventions for a 
settlement of what were called the "Alabama Claims" 
had been negotiated in President Johnson's time, but 
neither was acceptable to the United States. In 1871 
the British government proposed a Joint High Commis- 
sion, to meet in Washington and devise a settlement of 
several questions in controversy between the two coun- 
tries, including the Alabama Claims. The proposal was 
accepted, and resulted in an agreement styled settlement 
the Treaty of Washington, which was signed ciiSmsr™* 
on the 8th of May, 1871. Under this treaty i87i-i872. 
the claims in question were submitted to a tribunal of 



570 SECESSION, CIVIL WAR, AND REUNION. 

arbitration, which had its sessions in Geneva, Switzer- 
land, and which, in September, 1872, awarded ^15,500,000 
to the United States. 

President Grant was very earnest in efforts to bring 
about some correction of notorious wrongs in the treat- 
ment of the red men on their reservations in the west, 
and he gave extensive powers to a commission of philan- 
thropic citizens who tried to assist him to that end ; but 
the *' spoilsmen " of the public service and the lawless 
population of the frontier were too strong for him and 
them. The Indians were never worse treated, and sev- 
eral fierce outbreaks of different tribes were provoked. 
There were bloody and costly wars with the 
wars, Apaches of Arizona in 1871, with the Modocs of 

1871-1876. ^^ . , ^ i-r . • .. 

Oregon and northern Caliiornia m 1873, and 
with the Sioux of South Dakota in 1876. In the last- 
named conflict, five companies of a cavalry regiment, led 
by General Custer, one of the famous cavalry command- 
ers of the Civil. War, were overpowered by a great force 
of the Sioux warriors, commanded by an able chief 
named Sitting Bull, and were slain to the last man. 

This period following the war was naturally one of 
demoralization in political and commercial affairs. War 
DemoraUz- tends always to derange the better order of 
Sfence?of things, producing a moral laxity of conduct and 
"^"- feeling, in many ways. In this case it had 

intensified the vices of the " spoils system " in the pub- 
lic service, and raised dishonesties in it to a scandalous 
pitch. Then, too, the pernicious influence of the depre- 
ciated legal-tender paper money, which stimulated extrav- 
agance and cultivated the gambling spirit in business, 
was coming to its climax in the years that followed the 
war. The result was a state of things which brought 
unscrupulous boldness to the front in many fields of busi- 



THE RESTORED UNION. 5/1 

ness and of public affairs. The administration of the 
government was beset by corrupting influences, as it had 
never been before. The country was outraged omciai 
and shamed by frauds in the War Department, ^^'^^s. 
in the Custom House, and in the Indian Bureau, and 
by " whiskey rings " of dishonest distillers and conniv- 
ing officials, who worked together to evade the excise. 
Plundering combinations got control of munici- Tweed 
pal governments, most notoriously that known '^^' 
as the "Tweed ring," in the city of New York. Others 
took possession of great railway corporations, as in the 
case of the Erie Railway, and used them in au- jj-ig 
dacious schemes. Extensive frauds in the con- ^^i^'^^y- 
struction of the first line of rails from the Missouri to the 
Pacific, with corruption of men in public life, by a com- 
pany of men styled the " Credit Mobilier," came q^^^^^ 
to light in 1872-73. Enterprise in railway build- Mobilier. 
ing ran wild in these years, to such a degree that no less 
than $1,700,000,000 were estimated to have been ex- 
pended upon it, between 1868 and 1873. It was panic of 
extravagantly overdone, and had much to do ^^'^^' 
with bringing about a financial panic and crash in 1873. 
If demoralizing influences that arose from the cir- 
cumstances of the Civil War reached their culmination 
in the period of the presidency of General Grant, they 
were generally checked before it closed. Vigorous move- 
ments of correction and reform, in various directions, 
were set on foot. It was then, on the recommendation 
of President Grant, in his messa&e of 1870, that 

. . . " Civil 

the first act of Consrress in the interest of " civil service 

reform." 

service reform was passed. From 1865 to 
1870, a representative from Rhode Island, Mr, Jenckes, 
had striven annually to persuade Congress to begin some 
reform of the public service, without success. Now the 



572 SECESSION, CIVIL WAR, AND REUNION. 

first step was taken toward introducing a " merit sys- 
" Merit tem " of selection and appointment, by means 
system." q£ competitive examinations.; but congress- 
men disliked it, and brought the new system nearly to a 
stop, at the end of three years, by withholding appropria- 
tions for the necessary work. Public opinion, however, 
was demanding the reform, and hostile politicians could 
not suppress it long. 

The years 1871 and 1872 were marked by two of the 

most calamitous fires that have been known in modern 

times. By that of 1871 the city of Chicago, 

Chicago then containing: a few more than 300,000 in- 

lire 1871 

' " habitants, was nearly destroyed. The flames 
raged from Sunday evening, October 8, until the Tues- 
day following, burning over more than three square miles 
of the densest business and resident section of the city, 
devouring the homes of almost 100,000 people, with a 
total destruction of about 17,000 buildings, and of pro- 
perty reckoned altogether at $200,000,000. Boston was 
Boston fire ^^^ sufferer in November, 1872, from a fire 
1872. which laid waste sixty-five acres in the com- 

mercial heart of the city. Nearly 800 buildings and 
;^8o,ooo,ooo worth of property were destroyed. In the 
same years there were widely destructive forest fires in 
Michigan and other parts of the northwest. 

352. Preparation to resume '* Specie Payments." — 
Rise of the " Greenback Party." 1875-1879. In 1875 
an act was passed by Congress which provided for the 
resumption of specie payments by the government on the 
1st of January, 1879. That is, the government pledged 
itself to redeem its legal tender notes, dollar for dollar, 
in gold, on and after that date ; and the pledge was duly 
fulfilled. The price of gold in greenbacks had been 
slowly declining since the end of the war, and continued 



. THE RESTORED UNION. 573 

to do so until "resumption" made the paper dollar and 
the gold dollar equal in worth. But the market price of 
all commodities went down, of course, toward the gold 
measure of values, in proportion as the depreciated green- 
back currency rose toward equivalence with gold,^ and 
many people were dissatisfied with that effect. Believ- 
ing that inflated prices would stimulate industry and 
trade permanently, as well as temporarily, and that abun- 
dance of a "cheap money" would keep the country 
prosperous, these people were opposed to any oppositioa 
abandonment of the system of legal-tender irre- {io"T875- 
deemable paper money, which the country had ^^'^^' 
created as a desperate expedient, under the stress of 
war. They formed what came to be known as the 
** Greenback party," and were a force of importance in 
the politics of the next few years. 

353. The Centennial Year. — Disputed Presidential 
Election. 1876. In 1876 the centennial anniversary of 
American independence was celebrated in many 

11 • • . 1 1 1 1 T Centennial 

modes, but most mipressively by the holdmg. Exposition, 
at Philadelphia, of a great International Expo- 
sition of industries and arts. The educating effect of 
the exposition on the millions who flocked to it, from 
every part of the country, appeared notably afterward, in 
improvements of workmanship and refinements of taste. 
The presidential election of that centennial year was 
the most agitating and critical in its outcome that has 

^ Since the suspension of specie payments in 1861 (see sect. 318), 
gold, whether coined or uncoined, had been only a commodity of 
the market, bought and sold for greenbacks at prices always fluctu- 
ating and generally rising. The highest greenback price of gold 
was reached on the nth of July, 1864, when the gold dollar was 
priced at $2.85^ in greenbacks; at which rate the paper "dollar" 
(so called) was worth in reality but 35 cents. 



3;4 SECESSION. CIVIL WAR. AND REUNION. 

ever occurred. Disadecrion in the Republican party 
had not gone to the length of a rupture, as in i S72, but 
raised a heated strife between some who favored and 
others who opf>osed the renomination of Grant for a 
third term. Public feeling was against that departure 
from the precedents in our histon, and the project was 
given up. 

From numerous candidates proposed. General Ruther- 
ford B, Hayes, who had been an excellent governor of 
Ohio and a good soldier in the CWW War, was 
mS, the chosen nominee. His formidable (^ponent 
was Governor Samuel J. Tilden, of New York, 
reforming leader of the Democratic party in that State, 
and famous for \*ictories won in the o\'erthrow of the 
corrupyt " Tweed Ring " of Xew York cii}* and a cor- 
rupt " Canal Ring " in the State The Greenback party 
nominated Peter Cooper, a wealthy philanthropist of 
Xew York, who receix'ed a small \*ote. Between Hayes 
and Tilden the contest was close, and the result of it 
was found to depend mainly on certain southern States, 
where oppcwrtunities for fraud were wide, and where dis- 
putes in the can\-assing of votes were sure to occur. 

The dispRites arose in South Carolina, Florida, Louisi- 
ana, and Oregon, from each of which two certified re- 
turns of electoral \\>tes were sent to Congress by con- 
testing electors. The Constitution provides for no such 
contingency, nor had Congress pR"^\Tded. by any enact- 
ment. The Constitution directs that ** the president of 
the Senate shal!. in the presence of the Senate and House 
of Representatives, open all the certincates, and the votes 
shall then be counted.'* B)* whom sh<iu!d the question 
between these rival certificates be adjudged ? Republi- 
cans controlled the Senate ; Democrats were a majority 
in the House ; and partisan excitement ran high. The sit- 



THE RESTORED UNION. 575 

uation \\*as so dangerous that leading men in the two par- 
ties were forced to arrive at some agreement Thedan- 
before the day of counting came. They united |ue°stfon. 
in creating an Electoi*al Commission of tive ^^'^^• 
senators, five representatives, and five justices of the 
Supreme Court, to which all disputed votes should be 
referred. On this plan the count \\-as conducted, and yiv. 
Hviyes, on the morning of ^larch 2, 1S77, was declared 
elected, by a majority of one electoral vote. Unhappily, 
every question referred to the Commission was decided 
by a partisan vote, of 8 Republicans against 7 Democrats, 
which cast a doubt on the impartiality of the judgment 
of the case. There was no resistance to the decision ; the 
submission to it was most admirable ; but a large part 
of the nation questioned the rightfulness of the election 
of President Hayes. 

354. Administratiou of President Hayes. 1877- 
1881. That any doubt should shadow the election of 
President Hayes was most unfortunate ; for his excellent 
administration of the government marks distinctly an 
epoch of recover)- from the derangements of the Civil 
War. The temper of partisan politics lost much of its 
heat, and those leaders who clung to the bitter recon- 
struction issues found their influence decline. Public 
feeling approved the action of the President when, soon 
after his inauguration, he withdrew most of the Federal 
forces from the south, and allowed state governments 
which militar)- authority had been upholding in South 
Carolina and Louisiana to be set aside by the courts and 
legislatures of those States. The white inhabi- 
tants reg-ained political control in all the recon- ascendancy 
structed States, and have kept it by methods south. 

-...,. - , - ' , . , 1877-1881. 

{Ot mtmndation at tirst and atterward ot law) 

which annul to a large extent the political rights that were 



576 SECESSION, CIVIL WAR, AND REUNION. 

conferred on the freed slaves by the reconstruction acts. 
But experience had seemed to give clear proof of failure 
in the policy of force, employed for ten years to prevent 
that result, and public opinion settled slowly to the con- 
clusion that the duty of the nation to the emancipated 
people must be performed in some other way. 

Education, industrial training, encouragement to thrift, 
widening of opportunities, promotion of common interests 
and friendly relations between whites and blacks, 
progress In have appeared to be the most promising means 
for slowly bettering or curing the unhappy con- 
ditions of society which slavery brought about. A great 
work in those directions is in progress, with effects that 
show more plainly from year to year. 

355. The Bland Silver Bill. — Resumption of Specie 
Payments. In 1878 the approaching resumption of 
specie payments, with the consequent full return to prices 
measured by the gold standard of values, led those who 
feared bad effects from that measure to combine with 
a strong silver-mining interest in pressing through Con- 
gress an act known as the Bland Silver Bill. Silver was 
Declining losing value, compared with gold, from two 
s5ver°* causes. One cause was a vast increase in the 
1871-1878. production of silver, far exceeding the increase 
of gold production ; the other was in the fact that many 
countries, where formerly both gold and silver coins were 
equally legal tender, at a ratio fixed by law (furnishing a 
double standard of value), had lately adopted the single 
gold standard, dropping silver coinage, except for pur- 
poses of ** small change." By law the United States 
had done so in 1873 ; but practically it had done the 
same, by not coining silver dollars, long before. 

Three desires, then, actuated the pressure on Con- 
gress which brought about the passage of the Bland Silver 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 57/ 

Bill of 1878 : (i) to enlarge the market for silver ; (2) to 
bring into use another and lower standard of value — a 
" cheaper money " — along with that of gold ; and (3) to 
increase the quantity of money for circulation. The bill 
required the government to purchase, every month, not 
less than ^2,000,000 nor more than ^4,000,000 worth of 
silver bullion, and coin it into silver dollars at the rate of 
•412^ grains of standard silver, or 371^ grains of fine 
silver, for each dollar. It als'o authorized an issue of sil- 
ver certificates on deposits of silver dollars in the trea- 
sury, thus creating a paper currency redeemable in that 
silver coin. 

The resumption of specie payments was accomplished 
on the 1st of January, 1879, ^i^h no shock of Resump- 
disturbance to the business world. The prepa- *i°»'i879. 
rations for it made by the Secretary of the Treasury, 
John Sherman, were careful and complete. 

TOPICS AND SUGGESTED READING AND RESEARCH. 

344. President Andrew Johnson. — His Conflict 
with Congress. 

Topics and References. 

I. Antecedents of Vice-President Johnson. 2. His work of re- 
construction in the lately seceded States. 3. Action of legislatures 
in those States. 4. Feeling produced in the north. Blaine, ii. I- 
1 5^56-154; Lothrop, 404-418; Storey, 290-301; Burgess, ^^^^«- 
strtiction, 31-61 ; Grant, ii. 359-361 ; Hart, Coiitemfs^ iv. 468-475, 
479-481. 

345. Congressional Reconstruction. 

Topics and References. 

I. Undoing of the President's reconstructive work. 2. Civil 
Rights Act. 3. Fourteenth Constitutional Amendment. 4. Con- 
gress sustained in the elections. 5. Tenure of Office Act. 6, 
General Grant. — District of Columbia. — The Territories. — Ne* 



578 THE RESTORED UNION. 

braska. 7. Military Reconstruction Act. — Seceded States re- 
stored. 8. Fifteenth Constitutional Amendment. Blaine, ii. ch. 
viii.-xii. ; Burgess, Reconstruction, ch. v.-vii., x.; Lothrop, 419-425 ; 
Storey, ch. xix. ; Hart, Co7ttemp's, iv. 482-489, 492-494 ; Barnes, 
ch. ix.-xxiv. 

346. The Working^ of the Reconstruction 
Measures. 

Topics and References. 

I. Serious evils created. 2. Political adventurers and the negro 
vote. 3. Scandalous state of things brought about. 4. Violent 
resistance by whites. 5. " Ku-Klux Klan " and other secret so- 
cieties. Burgess, Reconstruction, 244-264 ; Blaine, ii. 463-474 ; 
S. S. Cox, ch. xxv.-xxvi. ; Hart, Contc7np''s, iv. 475-478, 495-500; 
Herbert, ch. ii.-xiv. ; B. T. Washington, ch. vi. ; Andrews, i. 36-40. 

347. Impeachment of the President. 

Topics and References. 

I. The President's attempt to remove Secretary Stanton. 2. 
Impeachment proceedings and their failure. Burgess, Reconstruc- 
tion, I42-I43» 157-194; Storey, 346-351; Hart, Chase, 357-36i ; 
McCulloch, ch. xxvi. ; Blaine, ii. ch. xiv. ; Hart, Cofitemp''s, iv. 489- 
492. 

348. Incidents of the Period. 

Topics and References. 

1. The Atlantic Cable. Prescott, i. ch. xxvi. 

2. Fenian invasion of Canada. Bourinot, 378. 

3. Undertakings of the French emperor in Mexico. 4. Maxi- 
milian of Austria made emperor. 5. Expostulations of the United 
States. 6. Withdrawal of the French. — Fate of Maximilian. 
H. H. Bancroft, ix. ch. i.-xiv. ; Nicolay and Hay, vii. ch. xiv. 

7. The Alaskan purchase. Blaine, ii. 333-339 ; Burgess, 7?^^^;^- 
struction, 299-302 ; Hart, Contempts, iv. 547-550. 

349. Election of General Grant. — Conditions in the 

South. 

Topics and References. 

I. General Grant elected President. 2. Deplorable condition 
of many southern States. 3. Conflicts. — Acts of violence. — 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 5/9 

" Force bills." 4. Harsh measures modified in 1872. Stanwood, 
ch. xxiii.; Burgess, Reco7ist7'uction^ 222-224, 267-276; Andrews, 
i. 40, 78-85, 111-167. (See, also, references under sect. 346.) 

350. Rupture in the Republican Party. — Reelec- 

tion of President Grant. 

Topics and References. 

I. " Liberal Republicans." 2. Their coalition with Democrats. 
— Nomination of Horace Greeley for President. 3. Reelection of 
Grant. Stanwood, ch. xxiv. ; Burgess, Reconstruction^ 264-267 ; 
Andrews, i. 30-36, 57-78. 

351. Incidents of the Administration of President 

Grant. 

Topics and References. 

1. Treaty for annexation of the Dominican Republic. Storey, 
ch. xxiii. ; Burgess, Reconstruction^ 323-327 ; Andrews, i. 48-56. 

2. Settlement of the " Alabama Claims." Blaine, ii. ch. xx. ; 
Burgess, Reconstruction^ 302-320 ; Andrews, i. 87-95 ; Hart, 
Conte7?ip''s^ iv. 550-556. 

3. Indian wars. — Fate of General Custer and his command. 
Andrews, i. ch. vii. 

4. Demoralization resulting from the recent state of war and the 
monetary inflation. 5. Frauds and corrupting influences. 6. The 
"Tweed Ring." — Erie Railway scandals. — "Credit Mobilier." 
7. Excessive railway building. — Panic of 1873. 8. Movements of 
correction and reform. 9. First step in civil service reform. 

10. Great fires in Chicago and Boston. — Forest fires. 
Research. — Insurrection in Cuba. — The affair of the Virginius. 
Andrews, i. 47-48 ; Hart, Conte7np''s^ iv. 557-561. 

352. Preparation to resume ** Specie Payments." — 
Rise of the Greenback Party. 

Topics and References. 

I. The resumption act. . 2. Decline of inflated prices and con- 
sequent dissatisfaction. 3. Opposition to resumption. 4. Beliefs 
of the Greenback party. Bolles, iii. bk. 1-2 ; Burgess, Reconstruc- 
tion^ 276-279 ; Johnston, Am. Politics^ 242. 
Research. — Gold speculation. — "Black Friday." Andrews, 

i. 40-45. 



58o THE RESTORED UNION. 

353. The Centennial Year. — Disputed Presidential 

Election. 

Topics and References. 

1. Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia. Andrews, i. 196-200. 

2. Division in the Republican party. 3. Failure to renominate 
Grant for a third term. 4. The disputed presidential election, 5. 
No provision of law for settling the dispute. 6. Agreement to 
create an Electoral Commission. 7. Decision electing President 
Hayes. — Doubts of its impartiality. Stanwood, 356-393; Bur- 
gess, Reconstnictio?i, 280-295 ; Hart, Contemp''s, iv. 504-507 ; An- 
drews, i. 200-221. 

354. Administration of President Hayes. 

Topics and References. 

I. An epoch of recovery. 2. Withdrawal of Federal forces from 
the south. 3. White ascendancy regained in the reconstructed 
States. 4. Political rights of the freedmen practically annulled. 
Burgess, Reconstriictioii, 295-298 ; Bryce, ii. ch. xcii. ; Herbert, 
ch. XX. 

5. Apparent failure of the policy of force. 6. Duty of the na- 
tion to the emancipated people : how shall it be performed ? B. T. 
Washington ; Cable ; Hart, Co7itei}ip^s, iv. 663-665. 

355. The Bland Silver Bill. — Resumption of 
Specie Payments. 

Topics and References. 

I. The combination which passed the Bland Silver Bill. 2. Sil- 
ver losing value, and why. 3. The objects sought in the bill. 
4. Provisions of the bill. T-Aw^sig^ Silver Situation, \-\o. 

5. Successful resumption of specie payments. Andrews, i. 264- 
267; Hart, Contejnp's^ iv. 531-533. 



THE NEW ERA. 
1880-1903. 



CHAPTER XVin. 

RECENT YEARS. 



356. General Garfield elected President. — His 
Murder. 1880-1881. As the presidential election 
of i88o approached, a wing of the Republican party 
called " Stalwart," led by Senator Conkling, of New York, 
renewed the effort to nominate General Grant for a 
third term. One object of the movement was to defeat 
the nomination of James G. Blaine, of Maine, with whom 
Conkling was at feud. The defeat of Blaine was accom- 
plished, but the nomination of Grant was not. The 
choice of the party fell upon General James A. p^rty 
Garfield, who had won distinction in the Civil «ii^ision. 
War and in public life since. The Democratic nominee 
was General Winfield Scott Hancock, one of the notable 
corps commanders of the war. Other nominations were 
made by the Prohibitionists and by the Greenback party, 
so called. The latter party now demanded, not only the 
substitution of legal tender notes for the notes of the 
national banks, but also an unlimited coinage of silver 
to be legal tender money. It cast 308,000 votes. Gen- 
eral Garfield was elected by small majorities in all of the 
northern States save three ; but he led General Hancock 
by only 10,000 in the total popular vote. 

By calling Mr. Blaine to his cabinet as Secretary of 



582 THE NEW ERA. 

State, and by some appointments to office in New York, 
President Garfield incurred the wrath of the "Stalwarts" 
and their chief, and the first weeks of his administration 
saw the opening of a bitter factional feud. The passions 
excited by that quarrel worked on one weak-minded 
wretch, among the office-hunting swarms in Washington, 
The tragedy ^^^^^' ^^ ^^^ ^d of July, 1 88 1, he shot the Presi- 
°*spoiis dent, as the latter was about to enter a railway 
July ^'" train for Long Branch. The wounded man lin- 
1881. gered for more than eleven weeks, while the 

whole sympathizing world watched the slow agony of his 
death. On the 19th of September President Garfield 
breathed his last, and the Vice-President, Chester A. 
Arthur, succeeded to his place. 

The new President had been most prominent as the 
close friend and political lieutenant of Senator Conkling ; 
but he carried no spirit of faction into the great office to 
which he had been tragically called. His administration 
was one of dignity, of prudence, of not much eventful- 
ness, but of quiet reputability in the annals of the United 
States. 

The shock of the murder of President Garfield by a 
disappointed office-seeker, maddened by the excitements 
of a shameful quarrel over the parcelling out of public 
offices, roused the public to a sense of the hatefulness 
and the mischief of the *' spoils system " as nothing else 
could have done. It incited a really resolute reform 
movement, which has gone steadily forward from that 
Qj^j day. A National Civil Service Reform League, 

ISom, organized in 188 1, with George William Curtis 
1881-1885. £qj. j^g ^\^i^ ^^^ eloquent president, has given a 

strong lead to the influences that work for the reform. 
The first efficient law to establish a merit system of ap- 
pointments in the national civil service (the Pendleton 



RECENT YEARS. 583 

Act) was passed by Congress in 1883, and faithfully 
administered by President Arthur. It has been supple- 
mented since. In many States and cities the public ser- 
vice has undergone a like reform. 

357. Change of Party in the Administration. — Elec- 
tion of President Cleveland. 1884-1885. In 1884 
Mr. Blaine secured the Republican nomination for Presi- 
dent, but failed in the election. A considerable 
body of "Independent Republicans" (called entsor 
" Mugwumps " by their opponents) withdrew wumps," 
their support from him and gave it to Grover 
Cleveland, the Democratic nominee. Mr. Cleveland 
had attracted attention in recent years by conspicuously 
straightforward conduct in public life. As mayor of 
Buffalo he had dealt with corrupt politicians in a way 
that caused the people of the State of New York to make 
him governor ; and as governor he had continued the ex- 
hibition of moral courage, sturdy uprightness, and sound 
sense. His election to the presidency gave fresh proof 
of the fact, which political managers are slow to under- 
stand, that no other candidate for important office is so 
"popular" as a single-minded, sound-minded, fearlessly 
straightforward man. 

When Mr. Cleveland became President, no Democrat 
had held the reins of executive government at Washing- 
ton for twenty-five years. To many good citizens the 
change of party in the administration was a xjniounded 
dreaded event, and it surprised them to find *®"^*- 
that the country was disturbed no more than by the 
transfer of government from one Republican President 
to another. There may have been, on the whole, a little 
more shifting of officials and clerks ; but it was slowly 
done, — too slowly to satisfy most of the politicians of 
the President's party, whose craving for the "spoils" of 



584 THE NEW ERA. 

their victory, after twenty-five years of privation, was 
keen. Few Presidents have been so Httle moved by party 
influence and so firmly independent in their course, as 
Mr. Cleveland proved to be. He provoked hostility, as 
a consequence, in some influential circles of his party. 

358. Controversies with Great Britain. 1885-1892. 
Xwo controversies with Great Britain gave some trouble 
to Mr. Cleveland's administration. One related to the 
privileges which American fishermen had been enjoy- 
ing on the British- American coast, under the Treaty of 
Washington, concluded in 1871 (see sect. 351). A com- 
mission appointed to determine the compensation to be 
paid for those privileges, and which met at Halifax in 
1877, had made an award ($5,500,000) which 
award, caused dissatisfaction in the United States. 

1877 

Consequently, by notice given in 1883, the 
fishery articles of the treaty were annulled, and ceased 
to have effect July i, 1885. This reopened troublesome 
old questions, and Congress was asked to authorize an 
arrangement with Great Britain for a joint commission 
to settle matters in dispute. Congress declined to do 
so, and a period of fishery quarrels ensued. At length, 
in 1887, a joint commission of British and American 
statesmen was agreed upon, and it met in Washington late 
that year. A treaty which the President approved was 
concluded in February, but the Senate rejected it after 
long debate. Fortunately, however, a change in modes 
of fishing had removed most of the causes of quarrel, 
and no further troubles of a serious kind occurred. 

A graver difference sprang from the claim of the 
.pj^g United States to a right of jurisdiction over the 

queSkinf* " ^^^^ fisheries " (so called) of the Bering Sea. 
1886-1892. -£Y\e controversy became serious in President 
Cleveland's term, and the peace of the two countries 



RECENT YEARS. 5^5 

was endangered by it for half a dozen years. Finally, in 
1892, the questions involved were submitted to a tribunal 
of arbitration, which had sessions in Paris during the 
following year. The decision was adverse to the claims 
of the United States, but regulations for the preserva- 
tion of the fur seals were prescribed, which the govern- 
ments of the United States and Great Britain were to 
enforce. 

359. Legislation and Incidents of the Period. 1885- 
1887. In 1887 the repeal of the Tenure of Office Act, 
passed in 1867 to tie President Johnson's hands 
(see sect. 345), was brought about by a sharp omceAct 
refusal on the part of President Cleveland to 
report reasons to the Senate for his removal of a district 
attorney, and to submit papers relating to the case. He 
questioned the constitutionality of the act, and condemned 
it as a grave encroachment on the responsible powers of 
the executive. His argument was so convincing, and 
public opinion endorsed it so strongly, that Congress at 
its next session repealed the act. 

Two other measures of great importance, touching the 
presidential office, were perfected in 1886 and 1887. The 
first of these is a careful guard against the oc- succession 
currence of a vacancy in the headship of govern- presidency, 
ment. It prescribes that, in case of the death, i^se-ias?. 
resignation, or disability of both President and Vice-Presi- 
dent, the executive office shall devolve on members of the 
cabinet in the following order : i. Secretary of State ; 2, 
Secretary of the Treasury ; 3, Secretary of War ; 4, At- 
torney-General ; 5, Postmaster-General ; 6, Secretary of 
the Navy ; 7, Secretary of the Interior. The Regulation 
second act removed that dangerous question figoi^e^iec- 
that arose in 1876, relative to the counting of ^o^^i votes, 
electoral votes. It provides for the determination by state 



$86 THE NEW ERA. 

courts, as far as possible, of all contests over electoral 
votes ; but when Congress must decide such contests, in 
counting electoral votes, it shall do so by concurrent 
action of the two houses, acting separately ; and if they 
disagree, the votes which are certified by the state 
executive shall be counted. 

In exercise of the power conferred by the Constitu- 
tion (Art. I. sect. viii. clause 3) ''to regulate commerce 
. . . among the several States," Congress passed an act 
of high importance in 1887. It placed all railroads that 
run in or through more than one State under the super- 
inter-state vision of an Inter-State Commerce Commission, 
commi?^ which has large powers to prevent unfair dis- 
sion, 1887. criminations between persons or places, in facili- 
ties for business or in transportation rates. Amend- 
ments from time to time have improved the working of 
the act, and made it effective for removing many causes 
of complaint. 

The message of President Cleveland to Congress in 
1887 was devoted to one subject, giving emphasis to the 
President ^^^t that the taxation imposed by the existing 
fi\?mes-^ tariff was piling up a dangerous surplus in the 
sage, 1887. Xrcasury, draining money from the business of 
the country to an alarming extent. The time-honored 
principles of the Democratic party were against the col- 
lection of such a surplus of revenue, and against the high 
tariff that produced it ; but a large section of the party 
had been helping of late to defeat all attempts to re- 
duce tariff rates. The President's message was a sum- 
mons to his party to renew allegiance to the principles 
it had always professed. The call was answered, and the 
tariff question, as a leading issue in politics, was raised 
again to its old place. Before Congress closed its ses- 
sion, the Democratic majority in the House of Repre- 



RECENT YEARS. 5S7 

sentatives had passed a bill, known as the Mills Bill, 
for moderating duties, and the Republican Sen- jyj^g 
ate had voted it down. The issue was made, ^^^ 
and went to the people in the election of the next year. 

After a lingering and painful illness of several months, 
General Grant died on the 23d of July, 1885, Death of 
and was entombed at New York, on the 8th qJ^JJ^^ 
of August, with funeral honors the most elabo- '^^^^' •'•^^^• 
rate ever paid in America to a public man. 

In the spring of 1886 an extensive strike on one of 
the systems of southwestern railways was attended by 
violent rioting at St. Louis. This was followed by an 
outbreak of labor troubles at Chicago, connected with 
which a mass-meeting in the Haymarket was held on the 
evening of the 4th of May. Speeches in the anarchist 
spirit, counselling criminal violence, were made, and one 
of the speakers was arrested by a body of the police. 
Thereupon a bomb, thrown from the crowd, 
exploded in the midst of the police, killing seven anarchists, 
and wounding many more. Eight persons known 
as anarchists were arrested and brought to trial, as ac- 
cessories to the crime, the throwing of the bomb being 
proved against none ; but all were convicted, of whom 
four were hanged, three were sentenced to imprisonment, 
and one took his own life. The justice of the conviction 
of some of the accused was questioned by many people. 

360. Election of President Harrison. 1888. Thougrh 
President Cleveland had pleased few of the political 
managers of his party, they were forced to renominate 
him in 1888. The Republicans named Benjamin Harri- 
son, of Indiana, grandson of the former President Harri- 
son, — a gentleman who had given excellent proofs of 
capacity in both civil and military life. Other candidates 
were put in nomination by several temporary organiza- 



5^8 THE NEW ERA. 

tions, which cast few votes. So far as the election turned 
on the tariff question, which it may have done in the 
main, it had no decisive result. Of the popular vote, 
Cleveland received a majority of about 100,000, out of a 
total that exceeded 11,000,000; but Harrison's vote was 
more effective in carrying States, and the electoral vote 
secured for him was 233 against 168. 

The Republicans not only regained the presidency, 
but they won a majority of the House of Representa- 
tives, and controlled the whole government once more. 
In the Senate they were heavily reinforced during the 
New states, "^^^ ^^^'^ years by the admission of six new 
1889-1890. States, carved out of the great territory of the 
farther west and northwest. Washington, Montana, and 
the two Dakotas came into the Union in 1889, Idaho and 
Wyoming in 1890. 

At the same time^ in 1889, a portion of the Indian 
Territory, bought from the Indians and named Okla- 
okiahoma, homa, " the beautiful land," was opened to white 
1889. settlement. In anticipation of the opening, 

thousands of intending settlers had gathered on the bor- 
der, and were held back by soldiers, until, on the 22d of 
April, the signal of admission was given and they entered 
the land of promise with a rush. One town site, Guthrie, 
had 10,000 inhabitants camped on it that night. The 
Territory of Oklahoma was organized promptly, and has 
had a remarkably rapid growth. 

361. The McKinley TarifiF. 1890. The party re- 
stored to power seems to have had no doubt that its tariff 
policy was endorsed by the people ; for, instead of lower- 
ing the rates of duty, it proceeded at once to raise them 
Aim of the ^^ ^ much higher scale. The aim of the new 
measure. measure, which became law October i, 1890, 
was to prohibit, practically, the importation of many arti- 



RECENT YEARS. 589 

cles, and reduce the excessive revenue by that means, 
while forcing the creation of manufactories to produce 
such excluded commodities in the United States. The act 
accomplishing this, known as the McKinley Tariff, from 
the name of the chairman, William McKinley, of the 
House Committee that framed it, was odious at home 
to the opponents of extreme "protection," and excited 
bitter feelings abroad. 

362. The Sherman Act. 1890. Another act of the 
same period introduced a new experiment in finance. 
It is known as the Sherman Act, and it repealed the 
Bland Silver Act of 1878 (see sect. 355), but only to give 
further satisfaction to the demand for more Gmwing 
silver in monetary use. That demand was xhfSeot^ 
spreading fast in the country, and politicians in ^^^^®'^- 
both parties were turning toward it an attentive ear. 
An increasing number of people were persuaded that the 
need of the time was more money, and that the quantity 
of gold in the world was too limited to allow of a suf- 
ficient supply of money from that source alone. In the 
opinion of many there was need of no " standard of value," 
but all money could be created, as the greenbacks were 
created, by the " fiat " of government, making a " dollar," 
by calling it so, on a paper note. But, they would say, if we 
must have a precious metal standard, let it be the cheaper 
and more plentiful silver, or gold and silver together, at 
the ratio of value they once had, which was 16 to i. 

In 1890 these opinions in favor of silver money were 
spreading fast, and they were greatly promoted by the 
Sherman Act. It required the Secretary of the Treasury to 
buy 4,500,000 ounces of silver every month at provi- 
the market price, and to issue treasury notes in Iherman*^* 
payment, which should be legal tender for all ^^^' 
debts, and which should be redeemable in either gold or 



590 THE NEW ERA. 

silver, at the discretion of the Secretary. The coining 
of $2,000,000 worth of the silver every month was no 
longer required, as formerly by the Bland Act, but only 
so much as might be needed for redeeming the treasury 
notes. As it turned out, there was no demand for the 
silver coins, since the legal tender notes were worth just 
as much, and were more convenient for use. 

363. Second Election of ex-President Cleveland. 
1892. The monetary ideas described above were repre- 
sented in a new political party that took form at this time, 

and which soon became formidable in the west. 

Th© 

Populist It received the name of the People's or Popu- 

party. . . ^ ^ 

list party, and, m the presidential election of 
1892, it cast 1,122,000 votes for James B, Weaver, its 
nominee. President Harrison and ex-President Cleve- 
land were rival candidates again in this election, and the 
latter was chosen by a plurality of nearly 400,000 votes. 
The silver-mining States, and most of the other new 
States in the far west, were carried by the Populist party, 
or by a fusion of Democrats and Populists, and those two 
parties, together, gained control of both branches of 
Congress. 

364. The Hawaiian Islands.^ — Columbian Exposi- 
tion. 1893. On entering office, in March, 1893, Pre- 
sident Cleveland felt called upon to undo a recent act 
of his predecessor, which he disapproved. A revolution 
in the Hawaiian Islands had overturned the native gov- 
ernment in the previous January, with the unconcealed 
approval of the American minister at Honolulu, and with 
something like protection given to the revolutionists by 
marines from a United States ship of war. The active 
parties in the revolution were mostly alien residents, 
and their purpose was to bring about the annexation of 

iSee Map XVI. 



RECENT YEARS. SQI 

the islands to the United States. Having organized a 
provisional government, they sent commissioners to 
Washington, with whom President Harrison Annexation 
negotiated a treaty of annexation, which he ^®**^- 
sent to the Senate, where it was under consideration 
when the change of executive took place. President 
Cleveland withdrew the treaty immediately, condemning 
the whole proceeding in strong terms. 

The next important official act of President Cleveland 
was to preside, on the ist of May, at the formal opening 
of a great international exposition, at Chicaefo, 

.• r 1 1- r A • Exposition 

commemorative or the discovery of America at Chicago, 

1893 

by Columbus. The exact anniversary of the 
discovery, October 12, 1892, had been celebrated by 
a ceremonious dedication of buildings on the exposition 
ground, then unfinished. In their beauty, their extent, 
and their whole artistic arrangement, these buildings and 
the surrounding grounds surpassed those of all previous 
"world's fairs," and gave impressive evidence of the 
advance of the country in conceptions of art. 

365. A Monetary Crisis. 1893. The working of the 
Sherman Silver Act of 1890 had produced by this time 
an alarming condition in the national Treasury and in the 
country at large. Silver had fallen in market value from 
;^i.20 per ounce in 1890 to 85 cents at the end of 1892. 
As silver dropped in value, the demand for gold in- 
creased. It was hoarded, or it went abroad. People who 
carried United States notes, either greenbacks or silver 
certificates, to the United States Treasury and demanded 
gold for them must be given the gold, or the forking 
credit of the government would be impaired. Sherman 
The government must fulfil its promises to pay, ^°*- 
by payments in the money that was the standard money of 
the world. United States law might make silver money 



592 THE NEW ERA. 

legal tender for debts in the United States, but could not 
make it so outside. Therefore, to preserve its credit in 
the world, it was compelled to keep its silver coin, its 
silver certificates, and its greenbacks up to the gold 
standard, by keeping them exchangeable for gold. 

At the same time, by its own laws the government 
was compelled to accept the legal tender silver and paper 
Drain of money for customs dues and all taxes, and none 
from the ^^ ^^^ revenue was paid in gold. Then the notes 
Treasury, j^ redeemed were paid out and might come back 
to it for re-redemption again and again, working like an 
endless chain, as was said aptly at the time, to draw gold 
from the Treasury. The only way in which gold could 
be obtained for satisfying this exhausting demand was by 
buying it with bonds, and the Treasury had no authority 
to do that with such bonds as would sell at a proper rate 
in gold. 

In June, 1893, this grave situation was made worse by 
a stoppage of the free coinage of silver in India, where 
silver money had been most in use. This caused a new 
depression in value of silver, a fresh increase of demand 
for gold, and a panic of alarm in the United States, lest 
our government should lose the ability to pay its obliga- 
tions in gold. The President called Congress to an extra 
session in August, and urged that, at least, the 

PtlTGllfl.SQ 

oi silver requirement to buy silver should be repealed. A 

stopped. 

bill to that effect was passed by the House with 
no long delay, but the Senate, controlled by supporters 
of the silver policy, resisted all appeals from the alarmed 
business interests of the country until the end of October, 
when it passed the bill. * 

The monetary situation was still a cause of great 
anxiety, and the President appealed to Congress, at sub- 
sequent sessions, for measures to redeem finally and 



RECENT YEARS. 593 

cancel all the legal tender notes and certificates of the 
government, and to require duties on imports to be paid 
in gold ; but it was not done. 

366. The Wilson Tariff and the Income Tax. 1894. 
The subject of tariff revision was taken up in the House 
of Representatives during the special session of 1893-94, 
and a bill called the Wilson Bill was framed, which re- 
duced the rates of duty to an important extent. With 
it went an internal revenue bill, to make up the loss of 
tariff revenue, and the bill provided for an income tax. 
When the tariff bill reached the Senate, some protected 
interests, in sugar manufacture, coal and iron mining, 
etc., were strong enough there to procure changes which 
disgusted most of the advocates of tariff reform. Presi- 
dent Cleveland was so dissatisfied that he refused to sign 
the act, but allowed it to become law. The income tax 
was extremely unpopular, and rejoicing occurred when, in 
the spring of 1895, it was pronounced unconstitutional 
by the Supreme Court. 

367. Venezuela Controversy with Great Britain. 
1895-1897. On the 17th of December, 1895, President 
Cleveland startled the country by a message which com- 
plained sharply of the refusal of the British government 
to arbitrate a pending dispute with Venezuela, relative 
to the boundary between that country and British Guiana. 
He recommended the appointment of a commission to 
ascertain the true boundary, with a view to 
determining the future action of the United message, 
States. This was a menace to England that 

might easily bring on war. Congress acted with haste 
on the President's recommendation ; the commission was 
appointed and proceeded to its task. In both England 
and the United States there was grievous surprise to 
find the two countries brought suddenly, as it seemed, 



594 THE NEW ERA. 

to the verge of war, and great excitement prevailed for 
some weeks. Of really angry war feeling there was 
none, and before long a reopening of negotiations between 
the governments led to an arrangement for the arbitra- 
tion of the dispute. 

From the settlement of the Venezuela question the 
British and American governments went on to the fram- 
Defeated ^^S ^^ ^ general treaty for the peaceful settlement 
teeaty*^°^ by arbitration of future questions between them. 
1897. That most important treaty, signed at Wash- 

ington on the nth of January, 1897, was approved with 
general joy in the country ; notwithstanding which pub- 
lic approval, it was defeated by a faction in the Senate, 
large enough to prevent concurrence by the two-thirds 
vote which the Constitution requires. 

368. The "Silver Question" in the Presidential 
Election. 1896. In the summer and fall of 1896 the 
country passed through a presidential election as excit- 
ing as that of i860 had been. One great body of the 
American people had come to believe that a free, unlim- 
ited coinage of legal tender silver money, with the quan- 
tity of silver in the silver dollar proportioned to the 
gold in a gold dollar in the old ratio of 16 to i (not- 
withstanding the lowered value of silver). 

Party divi- . , 

sion In would give prosperity and plenty to everybody, 

and overthrow what they looked upon as a 
tyrannical money power, upheld by the existing single 
standard of value in gold. Another large body believed 
as firmly that what these silver advocates wished to do 
meant universal ruin, overwhelming and complete. The 
silver men won control of the Democratic national con- 
vention, held at Chicago, and nominated William J. Bryan, 
of Nebraska, for President. The nomination of Mr. Bryan 
was endorsed by the Populists, and by a body of Repub- 



RECENT YEARS. 595 

licans organized as a National Silver party. It was re- 
pudiated by many Democrats, who held another conven- 
tion and nominated General John M. Palmer, of Illinois. 
The controlhng majority of the Republican party, in its 
national convention at St. Louis, declared itself ''opposed 
to the free coinage of silver, except by international agree- 
ment with the leading commercial nations of the world ; " 
and it nominated William McKinley for President. There 
was never before such debating by a whole nation in 
speech and print, — such a " campaign of educa- ^-^^ .. ^^j^. 
tion," as it was styled, — as that which ensued. Scation*"*^' 
The decision of the people was against the silver •'•^^^■ 
theory, by 7,104,000 votes given to McKinley, 6,506,000 
to Bryan, 134,000 for Palmer, and 181,000 for Prohibi- 
tion and Labor nominees. 

369. The Dingley Tariff. — Adoption of the ** Single 
Gold Standard." 1897-1900. One of the first acts 
of President McKinley, on taking office, was to call a 
special session of Congress for new tariff legislation, to 
increase the revenue of government, which he held to be 
the most imperative of needs. Congress met on the 1 5th 
of March, 1897, and the House was so expeditious in act- 
ing on the President's recommendation that on the 30th 
of the same month it passed a bill, reported from Com- 
mittee by Mr. Dingley, of Maine, and known as the 
Dingley Tariff Bill. The bill, which restored extreme 
protective duties, higher than those of the McKinley 
Tariff, passed the Senate in July. 

An effort to persuade the leading nations of Europe 
to join the United States in restoring the mone- Monetary 
tary use of silver was made by the appointment con^J^^ssion. 
in April of a commission of three gentlemen, who visited 
France and England, but returned with a discouraging 
report. 



596 THE NEW ERA. 

Efforts at home to deal with the incongruous and dis- 
turbing monetary system of the country were blocked by 
irreconcilable differences between the Senate, controlled 
by the silver parties, and the House of Representatives, 
where opposite opinions prevailed. Thus the situation 
remained until the spring of 1900, when the sway of 
silver doctrines in the Senate was lost. A law was then 
enacted which makes 25.8 grains of coined gold, eight- 
tenths fine, the standard "dollar," — the sole 
standard unit of valuc in the United States. '' Dollars " 

" dollar," 

established, represented in other forms, on paper or in 
silver coins, must be kept to equivalence with 
that gold "dollar" by being exchangeable for it. Appar- 
ently that standard is now fixed by both public opinion 
and law. 

In May, 1 898, a convention with Great Britain provided 

for the creation of a Joint High Commission, to settle a 

number of troublesome questions between Canada and the 

United States, including a disputed boundary between 

Alaska and the Canadian Dominion. The 

Canadian . _, 

questions, Joint Commission held meetin2:s at intervals 

1898-1899. ° 

until February, 1899, when discouraging differ- 
ences on the Alaska boundary question brought them to 
a close. 

In July, 1898, the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands 
was accomplished by a joint resolution of Congress. 

370. The Spanish- American War. 1898. Since 
1895 a revolt in Cuba, resisted with cruelty by the Span- 
ish government, had been appealing to the 

Destruction ^ r ^ \ • 1 1 • • 

of the sympathy of the American people, and stirring 

February, an indis^nation that o:rew hotter from month to 

1898 

month. To that excitement of feeling another 
was added suddenly, on the 15th of February, 1898, when 
the United States battleship Maine, while paying a visit of 



RECENT YEARS. 



597 



courtesy to Havana, was destroyed, with almost her entire 
crew, by what seemed to be the explosion of a submarine 
mine. An American naval court of inquiry investigated 
the catastrophe, and decided that the explosion courts of 
was exterior to the ship ; while a Spanish ^^^^i^- 
court concluded that it happened in the vessel's magazine. 
Whatever the fact, American feeling was hardened in- 
stantly to a determination that the war in Cuba must be 
stopped. After some fruitless negotiation to that end, 
the President was directed by Congress, on the i8th of 
April, to "demand that the government of Spain at once 
relinquish its authority and government in the island of 
Cuba." War followed immediately ; the President, on 
the 23d of April, called for 125,000 volunteers, and for 
75,000 more on the 25th of May. Cuban ports were 
blockaded, and naval forces were increased with rapidity 
by the purchase and adaptation of privately built ships. 

A fleet from Spain, which reached the harbor of San- 
tiago de Cuba, was block- 
aded there. Another Span- 
ish fleet, guarding the Phi- 
hppine Islands, — the only 
naval force of Spain in the 
Pacific, — was attacked in 
Manila Bay by the Asiatic 
squadron of the United 
States, under Commodore 
(afterward Admiral) 
George Dewey, and de- 
stroyed, on the 1st of May. 

On the 14th of June an expedition of 16,000 men, under 
General Shafter, sailed from Tampa, Florida, to Santiago 
de Cuba, to cooperate with the blockading fleet in the 
capture of that port and the Spanish fleet. Landed at a 




MANILA BAY. 



598 



THE NEW ERA. 



i Li I an V 
'A.mai 




XGuaslrfias 



.0 Siboue' 

.0^ C A R.I B B E A N SEA 




THE SANTIAGO CAMPAIGN. 



point near Santiago, the American army fought severe 
battles with the Spanish troops at San Juan Hill and El 
Caney, on the ist and 2d of July, and gained positions 
Land and for an investment of the city. On the morning 
ats^tiago ^^ ^^^ 3^ Admiral Cervera, who commanded 
July 1-3. |.j^g Spanish fleet, foreseeing the capture of the 
port, attempted to run the blockade and escape ; but every 

one of his ships was 
driven ashore or 
sunk. The honors 
of this victory have 
been kept in much 
dispute between 
friends of Admiral 
Sampson and Com- 
modore Schley, who 
were first and sec- 
ond in command. 
Santiago and the Spanish army were surrendered on the 
17th of July. 

Before this occurred, troops sent from San Francisco 
were arriving at Manila, to assist Admiral Dewey in tak- 
ing that city. Aguinaldo, exiled leader of an insurrection 
in the Philippines which had failed the year before, was 
brought back and raised a native force, between which 
and the Americans some degree of cooperation was main- 
Aguinaido Gained for a few weeks. But Aguinaldo and his 
juiySS*' followers were working for the independence of 
^^*" the islands, while the government of the United 

States was yielding to a desire for their acquisition, as 
possessions of its own. Aguinaldo proclaimed a revolu- 
tionary government, with himself at its head, and began 
to take an attitude of hostility to the Americans before 
the capture of Manila, which occurred August 13. 



RECENT YEARS. 599 

While the siege of Manila was in progress, another 
expedition from the United States, under General Miles, 
took possession of the island of Porto Rico, after a brief 
campaign of nineteen days, from July 25 till portoRico 
August 12. In that interval peace negotia- j^y^^u- 
tions with Spain had been in progress, and hos- ^^^*" 
tilities were suspended on the 12th of August, articles 
preliminary to a treaty having been signed that day. 
Peace commissioners from the two nations met 

Trofttv of 

at Paris in October, and the definite treaty was peace, ces- 
signed December 10. Spain relinquished her Spain, De- 

1 • • /-i 1 Til. cember 10. 

claim to sovereignty over Cuba, and ceded to 
the United States (see Map XVI.) the island of Porto 
Rico, the island of Guam in the Marianas or Ladrones, and 
the Philippine Islands, for which latter the United States 
agreed to pay the sum of ;^ 20,000,000. The acquisition 
of the Philippines was opposed with deep feeling by many 
of the American people, who looked upon the policy of 
colonial empire, and the subjugation of native peoples, as 
a wrong and dangerous departure from the principles 
and precedents of the Republic. 

371. Native Revolt in the Philippines. — Inde- 
pendence of Cuba. 1899-1902. The treaty was rati- 
fied, however ; American authority was asserted in the 
Philippines, and Aguinaldo became the leader of a revolt 
against it, which came to an outbreak on the 4th of Feb- 
ruary, 1899. From that time until April, 1901, when 
Aguinaldo was captured by stratagem, and little of the % 
revolt was left, an army was maintained in the Islands 
which numbered 71,000 officers and men in October, 
1900. Until July i, 1901, the Islands were under mili- 
tary rule, with a civil commission, having legislative 
powers, acting in cooperation with the military authority 
during the last ten months. On the ist of July, 1901, 



60O THE NEW ERA. 

civil government was established, pursuant to an act of 
Congress passed in the previous March. Judge Taft, 
who had been at the head of the previous commission, 
was appointed governor, and his wise administration 
appears to have created general content. 

Civil government in Porto Rico, with a governor ap- 
pointed by the President of the United States, and a 
legislative assembly elected by the Porto Ricans, was 
established in 1900. 

A military administration in Cuba was maintained 
by the United States, with General Leonard Wood as 
The governor, until the Cubans had framed a repub- 

S^cuSa!*' lican constitution which satisfied certain con- 
May, 1902. ditions imposed by the American Congress, 
and had elected a president and legislature. Then, on 
the 20th of May, 1902, the military forces of the United 
States were withdrawn, and the independent Republic of 
Cuba was recognized in due form. 

372. In China. 1900. By the acquisition of the 
Philippine Islands the United States was led to take an 
active interest in the affairs of the Far East. The great 
empire of China appeared to be in a crumbling state, and 
European powers were taking advantage of the weakness 
of its government to extort cessions of ports and districts, 
and special trading, mining, and railway-building privi- 
leges, in a shamefully bullying way. The American 
government took no part in that scramble ; but its Secre- 
» tary of State, Mr. John Hay, pressed each of the powers 
in question for a pledge against any interference with 
equal rights of trade in China. Early in 1900 he secured 
such a guarantee of what was called the policy 

The "open r 1 ,7 ^ >> t i i- .111 n 

door," of the "open door. In dealmg with the dread- 

ful " Boxer " rising against foreigners in China, 
which occurred that year, the American government took 



RECENT YEARS. 6oi 

a creditable part, sending a considerable military force 
from the Philippines, under General Chaffee, to aid in 
the rescue of the besieged legations at Pekin. It exer- 
cised a potent influence in restraining the allies from 
extreme measures against the Chinese, who had been 
provoked by great wrongs. 

373. Reelection of President McKinley. 1900. 
The presidential election of 1900 brought the silver 
question up once more, and it pushed aside the issue that 
would otherwise have been supreme, between those who 
supported the government in its acquisition and subjuga- 
tion of the Philippine Islands (called " imperialists "), and 
those (called "anti-imperialists") who opposed it. The 
silver forces again controlled the Democratic nomina- 
tions, and again named Mr. Bryan, still demanding a free 
coinage of silver at 16 to i. President McKinley was 
renominated by the Republicans, and the canvass of 1896 
was repeated, with less heat. The verdict of the country 
wa9»more emphatic than before. Mr. McKinley was re- 
elected by a majority of nearly a million over Mr. Bryan, 
and by half a million over all the candidates (Demo- 
cratic, Prohibitionist, Labor party, etc.) in the field. 

374. Murder of President McKinley. — Succession 
of Vice-President Roosevelt. 1901. President Mc- 
Kinley lived through but six months of his second term. 
On the 6th of September, 1901, while attending the Pan- 
American Exposition^ at Buffalo, and receiving a throng 
of people in its Temple of Music, he was most treacher- 
ously murdered by an assassin, who approached him, in 
the passing line, with a pistol hidden by a handkerchief 
in his hand. P'or some days there was hope that the 

^ The Pan-American Exposition was so called because limited 
to a representation of the resources, industries, and arts of North, 
South, and Central American countries. 



602 THE NEW ERA. 

President would survive the dreadful wound he received, 
but the hope was delusive ; he died on the 14th. The 
wretch who killed him, and who was seized on the spot, 
proved to be a Polish anarchist, who had no personal mo- 
tive, but was actuated by the insane enmity of his kind 
to all authority and law. The murderer was tried, con- 
victed, and executed within two months after his crime. 

Vice-President Theodore Roosevelt, who succeeded to 
the presidency, had had large experience already in 
public life, though but forty-three years of age, and was 
Theodore distinguished for vigor and independence of 
Roosevelt, character, and for high political ideals. As a 
member of the national Civil Service Commission, as 
a police commissioner in the city of New York, and as 
governor of the State of New York, he had identified 
himself especially with civil service reform ; and he had 
served with fine spirit in the Cuban campaign of the 
Spanish-American War. The cabinet of the late Pre- 
sident was retained by Mr. Roosevelt, without chan^. 

375. The Hay-Pauncefote Treaty. — The Inter- 
oceanic Canal. 1901-1903. In November Mr. Hay, 
of the State Department, added to his successes 

The Hay- . . ^ 

Pauncefote m diplomacy by concluding with the British 
November, ambassador at Washino^ton, Lord Pauncefote, 

1901. ^ 

a new treaty, superseding the Clayton-Bulwer 
Treaty of 1850, relative to the long-contemplated inter- 
oceanic canal. A similar treaty had been drawn and signed 
by the same negotiators in the previous year, but received 
amendments in the Senate which the British government 
declined to accept. The new Hay-Pauncefote Treaty 
proved acceptable in both countries, and was ratified with- 
out change. Like the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, it guar- 
antees the neutrality of any canal that may be opened 
through the Central American isthmus, but gives to the 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 603 

United States rights of ownership, regulation, and defence, 
which the former treaty did not. 

This arrangement with England was preparatory to 
the taking of definite measures for securing the construc- 
tion of the canal at the cost and under the ownership of 
the United States. An act of Congress passed in June, 
IQ02, skives authority to the President to pur- 

^ ' ^ J ^ Isthmian 

chase, for the sum of ;^40,ooo,ooo, the unfin- canaiAct, 

n^t J > > June, 1902. 

ished Panama Canal, begun in 1882 by a French 
company which became bankrupt in 1888 ; provided that 
the government of Colombia, in whose territory it lies, 
will transfer the franchise of that company to the United 
States, with proper rights and powers to protect and 
regulate the canal, and with control of a strip of ground 
on the margins of the canal, not less than six miles wide. 
A convention which satisfied those conditions was signed 
by the Colombian minister at Washington, on Rejected 
the 2 2d of January, 1903 ; but rejected by the TreaTy,^^ 
Colombian government in the August following. ^^^^' 
If the arrangement for acquiring the Panama Canal should 
fail, the President is empowered to undertake the con- 
struction of a canal on what is known as the Nicaragua 
route. 

TOPICS AND SUGGESTED READING AND RESEARCH. 

356. General Garfield elected President. — His 

Murder. 

Topics and References. 

I. Strife over the Republican nomination. 2. Opposing candi- 
dates. — Demands of the Greenback party. — The election. 3. Fac- 
tious hostility to President Garfield. 4. Effect on a disappointed 
office-seeker. — The President shot. Andrews, i. 307-336; Rid- 
path, ch. xii.-xiii. ; Stanwood, ch. xxvi. 

5. Vice-President Arthur as President. 6. Civil service reform 
quickened by the murder of President Garfield. Andrews, i. 336-347. 



604 RECENT YEARS. 

357. Change of Party in the Administration. — 
Election of President Cleveland. 

Topics and References. 

I. Action of " Independent Republicans." 2. Election of Mr. 
Cleveland, Democratic candidate, over Mr. Blaine. 3. The coun- 
try undisturbed by the change of party in the government. 4. In- 
dependent course of President Cleveland. Andrews, ii. 62-95 ; 
Stanwood, ch. xxvii. 

358. Controversies with Great Britain. 

Topics and References. 

I. Fishery disputes. — The Halifax award. — Fishery articles of 
the Treaty of Washington annulled. 2. New treaty rejected by 
the Senate. 3. Causes of dispute removed by changed modes of 
fishing. Andrews, ii. 118-1 25, 290-291; }^uYgtss, Reconstruction^ 
319-322 ; Blaine, ii. ch. xxvii. ; Hart, Contempts, iv. 542-546. 

4. Bering Sea controversy and its arbitration. Hart, Con- 
tempts, iv. 564-567; Andrews, ii. 125-126. 

359. Legislation and Incidents of the Period. 

Topics and References. 

1. Repeal of the Tenure of Office Act. Cleveland, 464-475 ; 
Atlantic Mo7ithly, June-July, 1900. 

2. Provision against vacancies in the presidential office. 3. Act 
to regulate the counting of electoral votes. Stanwood, ch. xxviii. 

4. Inter-State Commerce Commission, 

5. President Cleveland's tariff message in 1887. — The Mills 
Bill. Stanwood, 458-459 ; Andrews, ii. 114-117 ; Hart, Contejnp^s, 
iv. 518-520. 

6. Death of General Grant. Andrews, ii. 127-132. 

- 7. Labor-strike riots. — Crime and execution of Chicago anar- 
chists. Andrews, ii. 137-145. 

360. Election of President Harrison. 

Topics and References. 

I. Indecisive verdict of the election on the tariff question. 2. 
Republicans again in control of the government. 3. Admission of 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 605 

new States. — Creation and opening of Oklahoma Territory. Stan- 
wood, 459-487; Andrews, ii. 157-158, 195-200. 
Research. — Difficulty of the United States with Chile. Hart, 
Practical Essays^ v. 

361. The McKinley Tariff. 

Topics and References. 

I. Plan of the new tariff. Stanwood, 489-490 ; Taussig, Tariff 
Hist., ch. V. 

362. The Sherman Act. 

Topics and References. 

I. Object of the act. 2. Demand for more silver in monetary 
use. 3. Opinions which caused the demand. 4. Provisions of the 
act. Taussig, Silver Situation, pt. i, sect. vi. ; White, ch. viii. 

363. Second election of ex-President Cleveland. 

Topics and References. 

I. The People's or Populist party. 2. Election of President 
Cleveland. 3. Fusion of Democrats and Populists in Congress. 
Stanwood, 490-518; Andrews, ii. 232-243. 

364. The Hawaiian Islands. — Columbian Expo- 

sition. 

Topics and References. 

I. The Hawaiian revolution, 2. Treaty of annexation with- 
drawn by President Cleveland. Andrews, ii. 310-316; Richardson, 
ix. 460-472. 

3. The Columbian Exposition at Chicago. Andrews, ii. 243-272. 

365. A Monetary Crisis. 

Topics and References. 

I. Demand for gold, as silver declined in value. 2. Why 
the government must give gold in exchange for its notes. 3. The 
"endless chain " process, drawing gold from the treasury. 4. The 
situation in 1893. — Extra session of Congress. — Repeal of the 
requirement to buy silver. 5. Further measures urged without 
success. Stanwood, 522-525 ; Taussig, Silver Situation, ch. vi. ; 



6o6 RECENT YEARS. 

White, ch. viii.; Political Sciefice Quarterly^ December, 1893; 
Hart, Coniemp's^ iv. 533-536; Richardson, ix. 401-405. 

366. The Wilson Tariff and the Income Tax. 

Topics and References. 

I. Tariff reductions. — Internal revenue. — Income tax. 2. Sen- 
ate action on the tariff bill. 3, Income tax pronounced unconsti- 
tutional. Andrews, ii. 303-307; Stanwood, 523-525. 
Research. — Supreme Court decision against the constitutional- 
ity of the income tax. Earned, Ready Re/., vi. SSASST- 

367. Venezuela Controversy with Great Britain. 

Topics and References. 

I. President Cleveland's message on the Venezuela question. 2. 
Menace of war. — Feeling in the two countries. 3. Arrangement 
for arbitrating the dispute. Earned, Ready Ref.., vi. 557-560, 684- 
693 ; Hart, Co^itejnp's, iv. S^IST^- 

4. General arbitration treaty rejected by the Senate. Earned, 
Ready Ref., vi. S7 IS^o. 

368. Silver Question in the Presidential Election. 

Topics and References. 

I. Two conflicting opinions concerning money. 2. Excitement 
of the contest. — The "campaign of education." 3. The candi- 
dates and the popular vote. Stanwood, 525-569; Earned, i?^^^ 
Ref., vi. 563-574; Hart, Contempts, iv. 536-538. 

369. The Dingley Tariff. — Adoption of the Gold 

Standard. 

Topics and References. 

I. Special session of Congress for tariff legislation. 2. Char- 
acter of the Dingley tariff. Earned, Ready Ref, vi. 580-581. 

3. Failure of negotiations for free silver coinage in Europe. 
Earned, Ready Ref, vi. 314-317. 

4. Final adoption of a standard " dollar," defined in gold. Hart, 
Cojitemp's, iv. 539-541 ; Earned, Ready Ref, vi. 639-641. 

5. Joint High Commission for settlement of questions with 
Canada. Earned, Ready Ref^ vi. 63-64. 



TOPICS, REFERENCES, AND RESEARCH. 607 

370. The Spanish- American War. 

Topics and References. 

I. American sympathy with revolt in Cuba, 2. Destruction of 
the Maine in Havana harbor. 3. Determination to stop the war 
in Cuba. — Demand addressed to Spain. 4. Consequent war. — 
Calls for volunteers. — Blockade of Cuban ports. 5. Blockade of 
Spanish fleet at Santiago de Cuba. 6. Destruction of another 
in Manila Bay. 7. Military expedition to Santiago. — Battles of 
San Juan Hill and El Caney. 8. Attempted escape and destruc- 
tion of Cervera's fleet. 9. Surrender of Santiago. 10. Siege and 
capture of Manila. — Relations between American army and a 
native force under Aguinaldo. 11. Revolutionary government 
proclaimed by Aguinaldo. 12. Conquest of Porto Rico. 13. Peace 
negotiations and treaty. — End of Spanish rule in Cuba. — Ces- 
sions to the United States. — Payment for the Philippine Islands. 
14. Opposition to the acquisition of the Philippines, and its 
grounds. Earned, Ready Ref., vi. 583-638, 1 71-182; Hart, Con- 
temp's, iv. 579-581, 586-590, 608-611. 

37 1 . Native Revolt in the Philippines. — Independ- 
ence of Cuba, 

Topics and References. 

I. Revolt led by Aguinaldo, and its suppression. 2. Military 
rule, followed by ar civil government. 3. Civil government in 
Porto Rico. 4. Creation of the independent Republic of Cuba. 
Earned, Ready Re/., vi. 371-403, 182-190; Hart, Conte?Hp^s, iv. 
601-603, 

372. In China. 

Topics and References. 

I. Condition of China. — Action of European powers. 2. Guar- 
antee of the "open door" secured by Secretary Hay. 3. Part 
taken by American forces against the " Boxer " rising. Earned, 
Ready Re/., vi. 80-144; Hart, Contemp''s^ iv. 616-622. 

373. Reelection of President McKinley. 

Topics and References. 

I. The silver question revived. — The issue that it pushed aside. 
2. The vote reelecting President McKinley. Lamed, Ready Re/., 
vi. 646-660. 



6o8 RECENT YEARS. 

374. Murder of President McKinley. — Succession 
of Vice-President Roosevelt. 

Topics. 

I. Circumstances of the murder of the President. 2. Antece- 
dents and reputation of Vice-President Roosevelt. 

375. The Inter-oceanic Canal. 

Topics. 

I. The Hay-Pauncefote treaty. — Isthmian Canal Act of Con- 
gress. — Rejected convention with Colombia. 



EPOCHS OF PROGRESS AND CHANGE. 

Early Epochs in the Settlement of the United States. In the 
spreading of population over the great area of the United 
States there have been six epochs of movement, distinctly 
marked : — 

The first movement planted settlements along the Atlantic 
margin of the continent and on the eastern slopes coast set- 
of the Appalachian Mountain system, which was the tiements. 
limit of occupation, practically, till the end of the seventeenth 
century. 

The second entered the vallevs that lie between the rid2:es 

of the mountain system, stretching southwestwardly from 

Pennsylvania, where they come nearest to the coast, inthe 

and where the movement into them began. Those 1^^®"^ 

& moun- 

valleys gave a direction to the most important ad- *^i^- 
vance of settlement in the first half of the eighteenth cen- 
tury. 

Epochs of the Waterways : Rivers, Canals, and Lakes. The 

third movement, passino: the mountains, into the 

. . In the 

valley of the Ohio, was pioneered about the middle valley of 

/• 1 • 1 1 11-1 tie OMo, 

of the eighteenth centurv, and, during the next seven 1750- 

" 1820 

decades, carried most of the westward emigration 
of the times to the borders of that river and its many tribu- 
tary streams. 

The fourth movement of population, started by the build- 
ing of the Erie Canal (1817-25), was into the basin of the 
Great Lakes. In 1820 there were probably not into the 
more than 100,000 people in the whole country that ^^Q^eat 
has its drainage to the lakes, against a million, at \^^' 
least, in the region whose waters run to the Ohio. 1850. 
From that time the westward migration on both courses, lake 



6lO EPOCHS OF PROGRESS AND CHANGE. 

and river, went forward at an ever increasing rate, stimulated 
in both directions by the rapid development of steamboat 
navigation, and forwarded in both by an energetic construction 
of connecting canals. The quarter century between 1825 and 

1850 was a period in which waterways, natural and artificial, 
were an agency of more importance than in any former or 
later time. 

Epochs of the Railway} The fifth epoch opened when the 
new agency of the railway Avas added to the agency of the water- 
ways, with substantial ability to double the rate of 
Opening of •' . . ^. •' r . 1 

the rail- material progress. Ihat came, as a fact, about 

1850 ; for railways, with steam locomotion, though 
they had their beginning in 1830, did little for the western 
country in their first twenty years. In 1850 only 9000 miles 
of the iron road had been constructed in the whole United 
States, and most of that was in the east. Then the real 
opening of the era of the rail and the locomotive, as the chief 
factors in our national development, may be said to have 
occurred. In that year lines of rail from Georgia and South 
Carolina passed the southern mountains to Chattanooga. In 

185 1 the Erie Railway was finished from Lake Erie to New 
York ; the Hudson River road was opened from New York 
to Albany ; and the several linked roads (consolidated after- 
ward in the New York Central) which had connected Albany 
with Buffalo since 1842 were permitted for the first time to 
carry freight iii free competition with the Erie Canal. It was 
in the same year that heavy iron rails began to displace thin 
strips of iron laid on wooden stringers, in the construction 
Westward ^^ tracks. In 1852 two railways from Lake Erie to 
-?hJioc(f-°* Chicago were opened, and in 1853 the last link (be- 
issiT-*' tween Cleveland and Toledo) needed to connect 
1861. New York with Chicago by rail was filled up. In 
1854 the Mississippi was reached by the chain of rails from 
the ocean, and the chain was stretched to the Missouri in 
1859. By i860 the miles of railroad in the whole country 

^ Poor, Manual of the Railroads of the United States. Inter- 
state Commerce Commission, Annual Reports. 



EPOCHS OF PROGRESS AND CHANGE. 6ll 

had increased to 30,000. Then came the check of the Civil 
War, during which only 5000 'miles of new road were built. 

What we may fairly call a sixth epoch was opened almost 
simultaneously with the closing of the Civil War. Hitherto 
the railway had been either the ally or the rival of Beyond 
many mighty waterways of travel and trade. Now yaiify?* 
it ran beyond reach of their help or their competi- 1865. 
tion, out of the great valley regions into the almost waterless 
high plateaus and mountains of the farther west. There it 
began the work of wonder which is peopling supposed deserts 
with millions, covering them with fruitful orchards and fertile 
fields, and filling the depths of their hills with wealthy towns. 
In i860 there were 400,000 white inhabitants of California 
and Oregon, but less than 200,000 between them and the 
eastern settlements of Kansas and Nebraska, with little rea- 
son to suppose that the latter number could be much in- 
creased. Nevertheless, the building of a railroad promthe 
from the Missouri to the Pacific, to span that wide JJ\h^e^^ 
solitude, was begun in 1865 and finished in 1869. flesi"' 
It was an undertaking, not of commercial enter- 1869. 
prise, but of public policy, projected by the government as 
a means of binding the Pacific States to the Union, and the 
building of it was induced by enormous grants of public 
lands. Nobody expected much settlement of population or 
creation of traffic along its line, but there was an ^j^g 
ambition to make it a route of trade with China and |^f fj 
Japan ; yet the census of 1900 found nearly three i^oo- 
millions of people in five States through which it runs, and a 
recent historian of the road has written that ninety-five cents 
of every dollar it earns comes from its local trade. Instead 
of the one line of rail across the continent there are five lines 
to-day, inside of the limits of the United States, with a sixth in 
Canadian territory, at the north ; and not less than ten mil- 
lions of people are dwelling west of the meridian from which 
railway building took its new start in 1865. 



6l2 EPOCHS OF PROGRESS AND CHANGE. 

Irrigatio7i of Arid Lands in the Farther West} In the recent 
history of American agriculture, the facts of most interest are 
connected with the beginnings of an artificial irrigation of 
lands, in those wide regions of the farther west which receive 
little rain. Not many years ago they were looked upon as 
wastes of desert, although it was known that much of their 
soil became fertile wherever watered by the smallest stream. 
Primitive Some artificial watering, by small canals and distrib- 
irrigation. uting ditches, from the limited lakes and rivers, had 
been practised from early times by the Pueblo Indian tribes 
of Arizona and New Mexico ; and the Mormon settlers in 
Utah had applied such irrigation to considerable areas of 
land. In 1870, at Greeley, Colorado, a colony was founded 
for the purpose of testing the possibility of profitable agri- 
culture in that country, on lands artificially irrigated, and the 
experiment had success. Gradually from that time the con- 
viction has been growing that a large part of the arid lands 
of the west are not only capable of reclamation, but richly 
worth being reclaimed, even at great cost for works to store 
and distribute the waters in a regulated way. Between 1880 
Recent ^^^ ^^^9 n^^^'ly $68,000,000 of private capital were 
works. invested in such works, and at the end of that period, 
as shown by the census report of 1900, there were more than 
seven and a half millions of acres of far western land under 
irrigation, in 108,000 farms. In 1902 Congress was prevailed 
upon to make the undertakings of irrigation a national task, 
so far as to-apply to them the proceeds of the sale of public 
lands in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Ne- 
braska, Nevada, New Mexico, North and South Dakota, Okla- 
homa, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. This was 
done by an act that became law in June of that year. 

Expansion and Developrnent in Thirty-five Years} In thirty- 
five years, between the end of the Civil War and the end of 

1 United States Census Reports : Twelfth Census^ igoo, vol. vi. 
(Agriculture) pp. 797-880. 

^ United States Census Reports : Twelfth Census, igoo, vol. ii. 
(Population), v.-vi. (Agriculture), vii.-x. (Manufactures). 



EPOCHS OF PROGRESS AND CHANGE. '613 

the century, our nation added more than forty millions to the 
number of its inhabitants, spread them to the remotest cor- 
ners of its immense domain, and gave them busy employments 
of a thousand kinds. To accomplish that wonderful expan- 
sion of life and labor on the continent, many asren- 

Agency 
cies have worked together, but the railway has led of the 

r£illvirfl.v 
them all. Its miles were lengthened from 35,000 in 

1865 to 198,000 in 1901. By facilitating and cheapening the 
transportation of commodities, it has opened illimitable 
markets for wheat grown on the great fields of the distant 
northwest, for meats fattened on the wide plains of Texas, 
Kansas, and Nebraska, for fruits ripened on the Pacific slope, 
and for every mineral unearthed in the rich rocky recesses 
of the land. A few examples will indicate how much that 
unlocking of the resources of the country has meant. In 
1870 the improved farm lands of the United States mea- 
sured 188,000,000 acres in extent; in 1900 the measure was 
414,000,000. Of wheat grown there were 152,000,000 bushels 
in 1867, and 748,000,000 in 1902 ; of corn, 868,- uniock- 

000,000 bushels in 1867, and 2,101;, 000,000 in iqoi ; ii^fftiie 
' /' 5 05 > ^ } resources 

of cotton, 2,278,000 bales in 1866, and 10,768,000 o*tiie 

. . ' / ' country, 

in 1902. The domestic animals of the country were 

valued at $1,229,000,000 in 1870, and at $2,981,000,000 in 
1900. The wool produced in 1866 weighed 150,000,000 
pounds, against. 316,000,000 in the product of 1902. The 
tons of coal mined were 70,000,000 in 1880, and 261,000,000 
in 1901. Of iron and steel there were 3,263,000 tons pro- 
duced in 1870, and 29,507,000 in 1900 ; but the nine-fold 
increase of quantity yielded only a four-fold increase in 
market value of product, showing that steel and iron have 
been cheapened more than half in the thirty years. 

Cheapened Production of /ro?t and Steel. This cheapening 
of iron and steel, which has brought them nearly to the same 
level of low price, is the most important event in the indus- 
trial history of recent years. It gives the most useful form 
of the most useful metal to a thousand uses from which steel 
was barred formerly by its cost. It has been the result of 



014 EPOCHS OF PROGRESS AND CHANGE. 

scientific and mechanical improvements in the processes of 
manufacture, starting from a revolutionary discovery that was 

perfected by Henry Bessemer in England, about 

Scientific ^o r^u • ^ f n ^r 

and me- 1859, 1 he smiple process 01 Bessemer tor convert- 
improve- ing crude iron into hard and elastic steel, on a huge 
^^^^^' scale, at low cost, by forcing air through the molten 
metal to burn out an excess of carbon in it, was introduced 
in the United States about 1865. From that date, slowly at 
first and rapidly at last, steel has been displacing, not only 
iron, but wood and other materials, for countless constructive 
purposes. The greatest of economies in railway transporta- 
tion has resulted from the durability of steel tracks, super- 
seding the old iron rail. The frames of important build- 
ings, bridges, ships — nearly all considerable structures of 
every character — are now of steel ; while its use in machinery 
and utensils increases from day to day. By the more eco- 
nomical organization of their works, by the encouragement 
they give to labor-saving inventions, and by what seems to 
be a more efficient general management, the iron and steel 
manufacturers of the United States are now confessedly lead- 
ing the world. 

General Progress in MaJiufacturing Industries} Generally, 
the manufacturing industries of the country have been stim- 
ulated to a prodigious growth within the past thirty years, by 
their protection, on the one hand, from competition abroad, 
and, on the other hand, by the great area of their free trade 
at home, with multiplying millions of people. According to 
the census reports, $2,000,000,000 invested in all branches 
. of manufacture in 1870 had been increased to nearly $10,000,- 
000,000 in 1900 ; 2,000,000 wage-earners in manufacturing 
establishments had been multiplied to more than 5.000,000; 
their earnings had risen from less than $800,000,000 to more 
than $2 300,000,000 ; and the value of the total product of 
American manufactures had advanced from $4,000,000,000 to 

^ United States Censtis Reports : Twelfth Ce?isus^ igoo^ vol. 
vii.-x. (Manufactures). 



EPOCHS OF PROGRESS AND CHANGE. 615 

$13,000,000,000. Whether the country and the people, as a 
whole, have been bettered in condition, or otherwise, by the 
protective policy which helped to produce these results, is a 
question much disputed between those who favor that policy 
and those who are opposed. 

No parts of the country have gained more from this de- 
velopment of manufacturing industry than those parts in 
which it was neglected most before the Civil War. 
There was a seven-fold increase of capital invested in the 
in manufactures in the southern States between 
1870 and 1900, against five-fold in the United States at 
large ; nearly five-fold increase of wage-earnings, against 
three-fold in the whole country ; and a value of product four 
times greater in one case and but three times greater in the 
other. 

Discovery and Invention} Since the beginning of the nine- 
teenth century, scientific discovery and mechanical invention 
have wrought more change in the conditions of life on the 
globe than in all the ages that went before ; and in no other 
country has the change been so great and so rapid as in the 
United States. Generally speaking, so far as human activities 
are affected by them, the important inventions of 

man have started from and been dependent on some natural 

. forces, 

capture of a natural force, subduing it to his use. At 

first, and till not much more than a century ago, he merely 
caught those forces as he found them already in action around 
him, — already setting matter in motion, — in winds, water- 
falls, and strong animals, like the horse. He borrowed, so to 
speak, the existing motions of the natural world, and made 
them directly helpful to himself. At last — late in history — 
he began to get an inkling of the existence of an enormous 
store of locked-up force in the universe, prepared in motion- 

^ lies. Flame, Electricity, ajid the Camera ; Mendenhall, Ce7i- 
tury of Electricity ; Thurston, History of the Growth of the Steam 
Engine. 



6l6 EPOCHS OF PROGRESS AND CHANGE. 

less, imprisoned forms, ready to leap into activity for his ser- 
vice when he had learned how to set it free. Ap- 
Steam and . , 

the steam plymg heat to water, he discovered the manageable 

energy in steam, invented the cylinder and piston, 
and acquired a new motor for every machine he might con- 
trive. From the day of that grand achievement down to a 
time that seems only yesterday, invention was busy mainly 
with devices for perfecting and extending the service of the 
steam engine, — multiplying its labors as spinner, weaver, 
knitter, shoemaker, miller, sawyer, smith, printer, wagoner, 
galley-slave, — slave, in fact, for every task that the needs and 
desires of mankind can impose. For more than half a cen- 
tury after Watts, steam power was the sole form of force 
(except explosive and destructive force) that men had learned 
to generate and make useful for themselves. Then, having 
Electric come upon faint traces of that more mysterious 
The^'eie- form of force that we call electricity, they began to 
^^'^' learn something of its hidden sources and strange 
workings, and to bring it into use ; but only as an agile ser- 
vant at first, swift of motion, but feeble, — fit for the message- 
bearing telegraph, and for nothing else. Electrical discovery 
reached that practical result in 1844, and then halted for 
more than twenty years- It was not until about 1867 that 

the development of the dynamo began to disclose 
namo, the possibility of a generation of controllable electric 

power. Since that time, the electric battery and the 

electric dynamo have taken the lead that the steam engine had 

held before, among the agencies of progress and change. The 

marvel of the telephone dates from about 1876-1878; 
The tele- ... . 

phone, electric lighting was made practicable in the next 

lighting, decade ; the electric railway, which is transforming 

railway, cities and revolutionizing rural life, had its begin- 

Son^o?^^ ning about 188 1 ; the converting of power from great 

power' waterfalls, like that at Niagara, into electric energy, 

}SZ«" transmissible by wire for distant use, was accom- 

1900. ^ ' 

plished in the last decade of the century; the em- 
ployment of that energy in new processes of electro-metal- 



EPOCHS OF PROGRESS AND CHANGE. 617 

lurgy and electro-chemical manufacture, yielding valuable 

new products, arose simultaneously : and the latest „. , 

1 , . r 1 . , . . . , Electro- 
grand achievement of electrical science, in wireless chemistry 
, , and metal* 
telegraphy, had just been reached when the century lurgy, 

closed. That we are entering an era in which the teie- 

new-found form of Nature's energy will work more liso- ' 

change in the world and in the life of man than 

all that has gone before seems a reasonable belief. 

Social Effects of Ecofiomic Changes. The many and great 
economic changes of the past thirty years have acted upon 
the conditions of life in the country with profound social 
effects. The increase of wealth has surpassed the increase 
of population, which would mean a notable advance in gen- 
eral welfare if the increase had been shared in a general way ; 
but that is a matter of some doubt. Probably there is, on 
the whole, a larger proportion of the people who enjoy what 
we call " easy circumstances " in life than there was a gener- 
ation ago. Probably, too, those who live by hard labor earn 
generally the means of a more comfortable living than they 
did at the time in question. On all such points the compari- 
sons are uncertain, because the scales of measurement have 
changed. Wages, salaries, incomes of every description, have 
mostly risen ; but the cost of living has risen, too, in dif-- 
ferent particulars, at different places. 

The one certain fact is that the inequalities of wealth in the 
country have been widening in these years to a startling de- 
gree. The mere millionaires, now common among widening 
us, were rarities in the last generation, while the ties*of^* 
huger fortunes of the present day, measured by hun- ""health, 
dreds of millions, were unimaginable, even to the romancers 
of that age. On the other hand, there was much less of ex- 
treme poverty than has come to be familiar to us in the last 
thirty or forty years. There were few, if any, of the grave 
social problems that confront us in these days, on both sides 
of the scale of fortune, — on the side of poverty and on 
the side of wealth. Of unemployed labor there was seldom 
enough to raise questions in our minds. We knew nothing 



6l8 EPOCHS OF PROGRESS AND CHANGE. 

of the anarchist or the tramp. As for the great problem that 
now troubles the world, namely, how to keep peace between 
powerful combinations of workmen in one class and capital- 
ists in another, and how to protect the general welfare against 
both, it had not come into view. 

Combinations in industry on the vast scale of the corpo- 
rations, the '"trusts," so called, and the labor unions of the 
present time, were not possible until science and 

Opposing r y r 

comTDina- invention had done what they have done in recent 
tions of . , . . . . , r 

laijorand years, with steam, electricity, and other forces, to 
capital. 1 . 1 . • 1 • 1 1 

overcome distance and time, widening and speed- 
ing the intercourse of people with one another. Such organ- 
izations have risen among us lately in a startling way, with 
immeasurable capabilities of good in all of them, if wisely 
directed and justly controlled ; and with dreadful powers of 
mischief, if wantonly used. Their natural relation to each 
other is that of alliance and cooperation ; but their present 
tendency is toward conflict, with deep injury to the very in- 
terests that have organized them, and still more injury to 
society at large. Struggles between employers and employed, 
in strikes and lockouts, have been growing more frequent, 
more bitter, and more extensive, from year to year. The 
most serious of such contests occurred in 1902, when the 
production of anthracite coal was stopped for many months 
by a general strike of the miners engaged in it, and severe 
suffering in the whole country was caused. By the personal 
intervention of President Roosevelt, the mine-owners and the 
Peaceable miners were persuaded finally to submit the dis- 
of^?-*^^°^ putes between them to a commission, and the strike 
putes. -^vas brought to an end. This and other successes 
in arbitration give hope that tribunals for a peaceful settle- 
ment of labor controversies may come into existence, and 
may acquire an authority that will remove most occasions of 
strife. One step of importance toward that result was taken 
in December, 1901, when action by a society called the "Na- 
tional Civic Federation " led to a conference in New York, 
at which eleven representatives of great corporations, twelve 



EPOCHS OF PROGRESS AND CHANGE. 619 

of the foremost leaders of labor organizations in the country, 
and thirteen distinguished gentlemen who are selected repre- 
sentatives of the public at large, organized an *' Industrial 
Department " of the said " Civic Federation," having for its 
purpose " to promote industrial peace and prosperity," by 
using its influence and tendering its good offices " to obviate 
and prevent strikes and lockouts." The pacific influence of 
so broadly representative a body can hardly fail to 

be very great. Another influence to the same end partment 

■^ of Com- 

seems likely to result from the creation, by act of merce and 

Congress, in 1903, of a new department of admin- 
istration in the national government, styled the Department 
of Commerce and Labor. 

Hostilities more serious than those in the industrial field, 
because fiercer and more lawless, have grown alarmingly of 
late in the relations between white and black peo- ^^^^ 
•pie, especially in those parts of the country where confUcts. 
slavery left large numbers of the African race. The political 
suppression of the negro in those sections has not produced 
a friendlier attitude toward him on the part of the whites. 
Whole communities seem to go mad with rage when a black 
man commits or is suspected of the commission of some foul 
crime, and rise in furious mobs, to trample on civilization 
and law. This is one of the most sinister signs of the times. 

Progress i?t Education} The hopeful remedy for all social 
disorders is in general education, and a noble share of the 
intense energy of American life and labor has always been 
directed to educational work, — more in late years than be- 
fore. The foundations of a broad system of free common 
schools were laid early in most of the States ; but not much 
beyond the establishing and improving of that elementary 
system had been accomplished at the outbreak of the Civil 
War. For an education above the rudiments of knowledge 

1 l/jiited States Census Reports : Twelfth Census, igoo, vol. ii. 
(Population); Butler, editor, Education in the United States; 
National Educational Association, Jourtial ; Washington, Booker 
T., The Future of the Negro. 



620 EPOCHS OF PROGRESS AND CHANGE. 

the free opportunities were scant. Private academies and 
endowed colleges had risen only in limited numbers, as in- 
stitutions for a favored few. Then, at about the middle of 
the last century, an expansion of the free public school sys- 
Thehigh ^^"^ ^^ ^ higher and larger range was begun, by add- 
deveioB- ^"S ^he " high school " and the " normal school ; " 
ment. and this has gone forward with a vigor so increasing 

that, in 1902, the number of high school pupils in the coun- 
try was reported, at the annual meeting of the National Edu- 
cational Association, to have doubled within the ten years last 
past. At the same time, the care for learning in still higher 
ranges has been stimulated in an equal degree. By muni- 
ficent endowments from private benefactors, by large grants 
of public lands, by liberal appropriations of state aid, — often 

„ , , by united contributions from all three sources of 
Universi- ^ 

ties and support, — great universities and special schools of 
schools of i^f ' t3 r 

science science and art have been multiplied extraordinarily 
within the past forty years. Nor has that upward 
pushing of educational forces caused any slackening of effort 
in the elementary field. The work of common teaching has 
been raised almost everywhere to a new efficiency, animated 
with a new spirit, and made resolutely searching, to reach all 
the youth in the land, by laws that restrict the industrial em- 
ployments of the young and require their attendance 

United at school. A systematic invigoration of all educa- 

States -' ° 

Bureau of tional work has resulted from the organization at 

Washington, in 1867, of a national Bureau of Educa- 
tion, which gathers stimulating and suggestive information 
from every part of the world. 

The real fruits of education, in conduct and character, can- 
not be shown statistically ; but a certain gross measure of the 

,. ., , work of American schools during the last two de- 
Rapid les- . * 
seningof cades appears in the census reports of 1880, 1890, 

and 1900, and it indicates a splendid advance. In 

1880 no less than 17 per cent, of the total population of the 

United States, above ten years of age, was illiterate, — unable 

to read and write. In 1900 the illiterates had been reduced 



EPOCHS OF PROGRESS AND CHANGE. 621 

to 10.7 per cent. Of the white population of the country, 
9.4 per cent, was illiterate in 1880, and only 6.2 per cent, in 
1900. Illiteracy among the native whites dropped from 8.7 
per cent, in 1880 to 4.6 per cent, in 1900 ; but among the 
foreign-born white inhabitants it increased from 12 to 12.9 
per cent. But the greater gain in elementary education ap- 
pears among the people of color, 70 per cent, of whom had 
not learned to read or write in 1880, while the census of 1900 
found but 44.5 per cent, in that ignorant state. 

Conditions in the former slave States were changed amaz- 
ingly in those twenty years. In the two groups, of " South 
Atlantic" and "South Central," into which those i^the 
States are divided in the census reports, 75 and 76 giav" 
per cent, of the colored population was illiterate in states. 
1880, against 47 and 48 per cent, in 1900. Of the white popu- 
lation in the same two groups, 20 and 22 per cent, were 
unable to read and write in 1880, and but 1 1 per cent, in 1900. 
At this rate of diffusion, the rudiments of education will soon 
be given to all races in all regions, south and nonh. 

Possibly more important to the freed blacks than a know- 
ledge of letters is the teaching of handicrafts, the training 

for industrial occupations, the cultivation of thrifty 

... , , , 1 , , r 1 • • I . , Industrial 

ambitions and well-ordered modes of living, on which training of 
... , 1 ' > t • freedmeu. 

many devotea men and women are expending their 

lives in the south. That most practical mission work, begun 
by General Samuel C. Armstrong, the founder of Hampton 
Institute, in 1868, has grown to fame and greatness in the 
hands of Booker T. Washington, the wise leader, who seems 
to be showing the way of uplift to his race. 

As an instrument for producing enlightened judgment and 
action in our democratic country, the free public library, cre- 
ated wholly within the last half century, ranks nearly 
if not quite as high in importance as the free public public 
school. The first library ever founded as a munici- 
pal institution, maintained at public cost, for supplying books 
freely to readers for use in their own homes, was opened in 
Boston in 1852. From that seed of example, more than 5000 



622 EPOCHS OF PROGRESS AND CHANGE. 

public libraries, for the free lending of books, have sprung 
into existence since, within the United States, nearly 3000 of 
Travelling ^^hich exceed 1000 volumes in extent. These have 
libraries, spread from cities to towns and villages, in ever}' 
quarter of the land. Beyond the villages, too, out among the 
country farms, to the remotest settlements, streams of good 
literature are now flowing, in " travelling libraries." and by 
systems of rural deliver}', from centres of distribution already 
organized in many States. Added to the free circulating 
libraries are some 2500 more that are free for the use of 
books by students and readers within their own rooms. Men 
Library ^^ great wealth are promoting this free library move- 
gifts and nient bv such endowments and 2:ifts as never were 
endow- - ^ 

ments. bestowed on any public benefaction before. The 
drifts of Mr. Andrew Carnesne alone, to libraries in the United 
States, were reckoned at a total of $38,500,000 in 1903. 
Among all the activities of the new era we have entered, this 
seems to be preeminent in the largeness of its spirit and its 
promise of beneficent fruits. 

American Literature. In the period following the Napo- 
leonic wars and our second war with England, when the 
awakening of a new spirit in the country seemed to occur, we 
noted (see sect. 219) a very well-marked point of time from 
which American literature, in the higher meaning of the term, 
mav be said to date. It appears late in the second decade 
Begin- ^^ ^^"^ nineteenth century, when Bryant ( iSiy"^ pub- 
^*^^*fi^ lished the poem *' Thanatopsis," when Irving (^iSiq"* 
save the first essays of the " Sketch Book " to the world, and 
when Cooper (1820^ produced his first romance. Almost 
ever}' name of high distinction in American letters — almost 
ever}' WTiting that appears to be marked for lasting preserva- 
tion — has come from the generation that was young in those 
In its years. At the middle of the centur}- that genera- 

prime, ^JQ^ ^y^^s in its prime : its productive vigor was mostly 
spent before the ending of the Civil War; and not much that 
is equal to the best of its work has been added to Amer- 
ican literature since that time, if the critical judgment of our 



EPOCHS OF PROGRESS AND CHANGE. 623 

own day is true. Let the reader make a list of the poems, 

romances, essays, histories, and other writings from 1340. 

American pens that class most assuredly high in ^®''®- 

quality, as works of true literary art, arranging them by the 

dates of their first publication, and it will surprise him to see 

how they cluster in the middle decades of the nineteenth 

century, and how they drop away in its final thirty years. 

The later period is more fertile than its predecessor, and 

the quality of its literary product is not mean. In fact, there 

was never a time before in any country when liter- uterary 

ary gifts of a considerably high order were diffused *ertiuty. 

so commonly, or cultivated so assiduously, yielding so much 

that is good ; but the uplift of inspiration to^r^<7/ work seems 

wantins: in nearly all that is done. Perhaps our ao:e 

. , . . Lacko! 

exhausts its genius so nearly in subduing the forces high 

r 1 • • ■ • r 1 • 1 Qiuallty. 

of nature and organizing the energies of mankind 

that it has little to spare for the undertakings of art. The 

next generation may have more freedom from material tasks 

and be better prepared for the finer workings of imagination 

and thought. There are signs to indicate a trend that way 

in the swift and powerful currents of American life. 



K 



AIMM^NDIX A. 

THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Pkkamhlk. 

Wl£, the people of the United States, in order to form a more 
perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquilHty, provide 
for the common defense, promote tlie general welfare, and secure 
the blessin<jjs of liberty to ourselves and our i)osterity, do ordain 
and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. 

Article I. Legislative Department. 

Section I. Congress in General. 

All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Con- 
gress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and 
House of Representatives. 

Section II. House of Represe?itatives. 

1. The House of Representatives shall be composed of members 
chosen every second year by the people of the several States, and 
the electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for 
electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislature. 

2. No person shall be a Representative who shall not have at- 
tained to the age of twenty-five years, and been seven years a citi- 
zen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an 
inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen. 

3. Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among 
the several States which may be included within this Union, ac- 
cording to their respective numbers, which shall l)e determined by 
adding to the whole numb^T of free persons, including those bound 
to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, 
three fifths of all other persons. The actual enumeration shall be 
made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of 
the United States, and within every subsequent term of ten years, 
in such manner as they shall by law direct. The number of Repre- 

I 



APPENDIX A. 

sentatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand, but each 
State shall have at least one Representative ; and until such enume- 
ration shall be made, the state of New Ha7npshire shall be entitled 
to choose three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode Island and Providence 
Plantations one, Confiecticut five, A/'ew York six, A-ew Jersey four, 
Pennsylvafiia eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, 
North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Geo?'gia three. 

4. When vacancies happen in the re'presentation from any State, 
the executive authority thereof shall issue writs of election to fill 
such vacancies. 

5. The House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker and 
other officers, and shall have the sole power of impeachment. 

Section III. Senate. 

1. The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two 
Senators from each State, chosen by the legislature thereof, for six 
years; and each Senator shall have one vote. 

2. Immediately after they shall be assembled in consequence of 
the first election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into 
three classes. The seats of the Senators of the first class shall be 
vacated at the expiration of the second year ; of the second class, 
at the expiration of the fourth year, and of the third class, at the 
expiration of the sixth year, so that one third may be chosen every 
second year ; and if vacancies happen by resignation or otherwise 
during the recess of the legislature of any State, the executive 
thereof may make temporary appointments until the next meeting 
of the legislature, which shall then fill such vacancies. 

3. No person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to 
the age of thirty years, and been nine years a citizen of the United 
States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that 
State for which he shall be chosen. 

4. The Vice-President of the United States shall be President of 
the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided. 

5. The Senate shall choose their other officers, and also a Presi- 
dent /r<? te7npore in the absence of the Vice-President, or when he 
shall exercise the office of President of the United States. 

6. The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. 
When sitting for that purpose, they shall be on oath or affirmation. 
When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice 
shall preside : and no person shall be convicted without the concur- 
rence of two thirds of the members present. 



THE CONSTITUTION. 

7. Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further 
than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy 
any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States ; but 
the party convicted shall, nevertheless, be liable and subject to in- 
dictment, trial, judgment, and punishment, according to law. 

Section IV. Both Houses. 

1. The times, places, and manner of holding elections for Sena- 
tors and Representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the 
legislature thereof; but the Congress may at anytime by law make 
or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing Sen- 
ators. 

2. The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and 
such meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they 
shall by law appoint a different day. 

Section V. The Houses Separately. 

1. Each house shall be the judge of the elections, returns, and 
qualifications of its own members, and a majority of each shall con- 
stitute a quorum to do business ; but a smaller number may adjourn 
from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the attendance 
of absent members, in such manner, and under such penalties, as 
each house may provide. 

2. Each house may determine the rules of its proceedings, pun- 
ish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence 
of two thirds, expel a member. 

3. Each house shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and from 
time to time publish the same, excepting such parts as may in their 
judgment require secrecy, and the yeas and nays of the members of 
either house on any question shall, at the desire of one fifth of those 
present, be entered on the journal. 

4. Neither house, during the session of Congress, shall, without 
the consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to 
any other place than that in which the two houses shall be sitting. 

Section VI. Privileges and Disabilities of Metnbers. 

I. The Senators and Representatives shall receive a compensa- 
tion for their services, to be ascertained by law and paid out of 
the Treasury of the United States. They shall, in all cases except 
treason, felony, and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest 
during their attendance at the session of their respective houses, 

3 



APPENDIX A. 

and in going to and returning from the same ; and for any speech 
or debate in either house they shall not be questioned in any other 
place. 

2. No Senator or Representative shall, during the time for which 
he was elected, be appointed to any civil office under the authority 
of the United States, which shall have been created, or the emolu- 
ments whereof shall have been increased during such time ; and no 
person holding any office under the United States shall be a mem- 
ber of either house during his continuance in office. 

Section VII. Mode of Passing Laws. 

1. All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of 
Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with amend- 
ments as on other bills. 

2. Every bill which shall have passed the House of Representa- 
tives and the Senate shall, before it become a law, be presented to 
the Presi lent of the United States ; if he approve he shall sign it, 
but if not he shall return it, with his objections, to that house in 
which it shall have originated, who shall enter the objections at large 
on their journal and proceed to reconsider it. If after such reconsid- 
eration two thirds of that house shall agree to pass the bill, it shall 
be sent, together with the objections, to the other house, by which 
it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of 
that house it shall become a law. But in all such cases the votes of 
both houses shall be determwjed by yeas and nays, and the names 
of the persons voting for and against the bill shall be entered on 
the journal of each house respectively. If any bill shall not be re- 
turned by the President within ten days (Sundays excepted) after 
it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a law, in like 
manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their adjourn- 
ment prevent its return, in which case it shall not be a law. 

3. Every order, resolution, or vote to which the concurrence of 
the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary (except 
on a question of adjournment) shall be presented to the President 
of the United States ; and before the same shall take effect, shall 
be approved by him, or being disapproved by him, shall be repassed 
by two thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives, accord- 
ing to the rules and limitations prescribed in the case of a bill. 



THE CONSTITUTION. 

Section VII L Powers granted to Congress. 
The Congress shall have power : 

1. To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay 
the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare 
of the United States ; but all duties, imposts, and excises shall be 
uniform throughout the United States ; 

2. To borrow money on the credit of the United States ; 

3. To regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the 
several States, and with the Indian tribes ; 

4. To establish an uniform rule of naturahzation, and uniform 
laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States ; 

5. To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, 
and fix the standard of weights and measures ; 

6. To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities 
and current coin of the United States ; 

7. To establish post-offices and post-roads ; 

8. To promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing 
for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to 
their respective writings and discoveries ; 

9. To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court ; 

10. To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the 
high seas and offenses against the law of nations ; 

11. To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and 
make rules concerning captures on land and water ; 

12. To raise and support armaes, but no appropriation of money 
to that use shall be for a longer term than two years ; 

13. To provide and maintain a navy ; 

14. To make rules for the government and regulation of the land 
and naval forces ; 

15. To provide for calling forth the mihtia to execute the laws of 
the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions ; 

16. To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the mili- 
tia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the 
service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively the 
appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia 
according to the discipline prescribed by Congress ; 

17. To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over 
such district (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of 
particular States and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat 
of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like author- 

5 



APPENDIX A. 

ity over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the 
State in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, maga- 
zines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings ; and 

1 8. To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for 
carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers 
vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, 
or in any department or officer thereof.^ 

Section IX. Powers denied to the United States. 

1. The migration or importation of such persons as any of the 
States now existing shall think proper to admit shall not be pro- 
hibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight 
hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such im- 
portation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person. 

2. The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be sus- 
pended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public 
safety may require it. 

3. No bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed. 

4. No capitation or other direct tax shall be laid, unless in pro- 
portion to the census or enumeration hereinbefore directed to be 
taken. 

5. No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any State. 

6. No preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce 
or revenue to the ports of one State over those of another ; nor 
shall vessels bound to or from one State be obliged to enter, clear, 
or pay duties in another. 

7. No money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in conse- 
quence of appropriations made by law ; and a regular statement 
and account of the receipts and expenditures of all public money 
shall be published from time to time. 

8. No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States ; and 
no person holding any office of profit or trust under them shall, 
without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolu- 
ment, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, 
or foreign State. 

Section X. Powers denied to the States. 

I. No State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation ; 
grant letters of marque and reprisal : coin money ; emit bills of 

1 This is the Elastic Clause in the interpretation of which arose the original and 
fundamental division of political parties. 

6 



THE CONSTITUTION. 

credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment 
of debts ; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law im- 
pairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility. 

2. No State shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay any 
imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be abso- 
lutely necessary for executing its inspection laws ; and the net pro- 
duce of all duties and imposts, laid by any State on imports or 
exports, shall be for the use of the Treasury of the United States; 
and all such laws shall be subject to the revision and control of the 
Congress. 

3. No State shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay any 
duty of tonnage, keep troops or ships of war in time of peace, enter 
into any agreement or compact with another State or with a for- 
eign power, or engage in war, unless actually invaded or in such 
imminent danger as will not admit of delay. 

Article II. Executive Department. 

Section I. President and Vice-President. 

1. The executive power shall be vested in a President of the 
United States of America. He shall hold his office during the term 
of four years, and together with the Vice-President, chosen for the 
same term, be elected as follows : 

2. Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the legislature 
thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole num- 
ber of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be en- 
titled in the Congress ; but no Senator or Representative, or person 
holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be 
appointed an elector, 

3. [The electors shall meet in their respective States and vote by 
ballot for two persons, of whom one at least shall not be an inhab- 
itant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a 
list of all the persons voted for, and of the number of votes for 
each ; which list they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to 
the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the 
President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the 
presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the 
certificates, and the votes shall then be counted. The person hav- 
ing the greatest number of votes shall be the President, if such num- 
ber be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed ; and if 
there be more than one who have such majority, and have an equal 

7 



APPENDIX A. 

number of votes, then the House of Representatives shall immedi- 
ately choose by ballot one of them for President ; and if no person 
have a majority, then from the five highest on the list the said 
House shall in like manner choose the President. But in choosing 
the President the votes shall be taken by States, the representation 
from each State having one vote ; a quorum for this purpose shall 
consist of a member or members from two thirds of the States, and 
a majorit}' of all the States shall be necessar}- to a choice. In ever)- 
case, after the choice of the President, the person having the great- 
est number of votes of the electors shall be the Vice-President. 
But if there should remain two or more who have equal votes, the 
Senate shall choose from them by ballot the Vice-President.]^ 

4. The Congress may determine the time of choosing the electors 
and the day on which they shall give their votes, which day shall be 
the same throughout the United States. 

5. No person except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the 
United States at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall 
be eligible to the office of President ; neither shall any person be 
eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of 
thirt}--five years, and been fourteen years a resident within the 
United States. 

6. In case of the removal of the President from office, or of his 
death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and duties 
of the said office, the same shall devolve on the \'ice-President, and 
the Congress may by law provide for the case of removal, death, 
resignation, or inability, both of the President and Vice-President, 
declaring what officer shall then act as President, and such officer 
shall act accordingly until the disability be removed or a President 
shall be elected. 

7. The President shall, at stated times, receive for his services a 
compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished dur- 
ing the period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall 
not receive within that period any other emolument from the United 
States or any of them. 

8. Before he enter on the execution of his office he shall take the 
following oath or affirmation : 

" I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I wiU faithfully execute the 
office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my 
ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United 
States." 

1 This clause of the Constitution has been amended. See Amendments, Art. 
XII. 

8 



THE CONSTITUTION. 

Section II. Powers of the President. 

1. The President shall be Commander-in-chief of the Army and 
Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several States 
when called into the actual service of the United States ; he may 
require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of 
the executive departments, upon any subject relating to the duties 
of their respective offices, and he shall have power to grant re- 
prieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except 
in cases of impeachment. 

2. He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of 
the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators 
present concur ; and he shall nominate, and, by and with the ad- 
vice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other 
public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all 
other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not 
herein othervvise provided for, and which shall be established by 
law ; but the Congress may by law vest the appointment of such 
inferior officers, as they think proper, ih the President alone, in 
the courts of law, or in the heads of departments. 

3. The President shall have power to fill up all vacancies that 
may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commis- 
sions which shall expire at the end of their next session. 

Section III. Duties of the President. 

He shall from time to time give to the Congress information of 
the state of the Union, and recommend to their consideration such 
measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient ; he may, on 
extraordinary occasions, convene both houses, or either of them, 
and in case of disagreement between them with respect to the time 
of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think 
proper ; he shall receive ambassadors and other public ministers ; 
he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and shall 
commission all the officers of the United States. 

Section IV. Impeachtnettt. 

The President, Vice-President, and all civil officers of the United 
States shall be removed from office on impeachment for and con- 
viction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemean- 
ors. 



APPENDIX A. 

Article III. Judicial Department. 

Section I. Ufiited States Courts. 

The judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one 
Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may 
from time to time ordain and establish. The judges, both of the 
supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good 
behavior, and shall, at stated times, receive for their services a 
compensation, which shall not be diminished during their continu- 
ance in office. 

Section II. yurisdiction of the United States Courts. 

1. The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and 
equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United 
States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their 
authority ; to all cases affecting ambassadors, other public minis- 
ters, and consuls ; to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdic- 
tion ; to controversies to which the United States shall be a party ; 
to controversies between two or more States ; between a State and 
citizens of another State ; between citizens of different States ; be- 
tween citizens of the same State claiming lands under grants of 
different States, and between a State, or the citizens thereof, and 
foreign States, citizens, or subjects.^ 

2. In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and 
consuls, and those in which a State shall be a party, the Supreme 
Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases be- 
fore mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdic- 
tion, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such 
regulations as the Congress shall make. 

3. The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall 
be by jury ; and such trial shall be held in the State where the 
said crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed 
within any State, the trial shall be at such place or places as the 
Congress may by law have directed. 

Section III. Treason. 

I. Treason against the United States shall consist only in levy- 
ing war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them 
aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless 
1 This clause has been amended. See Amendments, Art. XL 

10 



THE CONSTITUTION. 

on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on con- 
fession in open court. 

2. The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of 
treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood 
or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted. 

Article IV. — The States and the Federal Govern- 
ment. 

Section I. State Records. 

Full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public 
acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other State. And 
the Congress may by general laws prescribe the manner in which 
such acts, records, and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect 
thereof. 

Section II. Privileges of Citizens, etc. 

1. The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges 
and immunities of citizens in the several States. 

2. A person charged in any State with treason, felony, or other 
crime, who shall flee from justice, and be found in another State, 
shall, on demand of the executive authority of the State from which 
he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having juris- 
diction of the crime. 

3. No person held to service or labor in one State, under the 
laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any 
law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, 
but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such ser- 
vice or labor may be due.^ 

Section III. New States and Territories. 

1. New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; 
but no new State shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction 
of any other State ; nor any State be formed by the junction of 
two or more States or parts of States, without the consent of the 
legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress. 

2. The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all 
needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other 
property belonging to the United States ; and nothing in this Con- 
stitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the 
United States or of any particular State. 

i This clause has been canceled by Amendment XIII., which abolishes slavery. 

II 



APPENDIX A. 

Section IV. Guarantee to the States. 
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union 
a republican form of government and shall protect each of them 
against invasion, and on application of the legislature, or of the 
executive (^when the legislature cannot be convened, against do- 
mestic violence. 

Article V. Power of A>iE>-DitE>-r. 

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem 
it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, 
on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several 
States, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which in 
either case shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of this 
Constitution, when ratilied by the legislatures of three fourths of 
the several States, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as 
the one or the other mode of ratilication may be proposed by the 
Congress, provided that no amendment which may be made prior 
to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any 
manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of 
the first article : and that no State, without its consent, shall be 
deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate. 

Article VI. PrsLic Debt. Supremacy of the CoxsTmr- 
Tiox, Oath of Office, Religious Test 

1. All debts contracted and engagements entered into^ before 
the adoption of this Constitution, shall be as vaHd against the 
United States under this Constitution as under the Confederation. 

2. This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which 
shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or 
which shall be made, under the authority of the United States. 
shall be the supreme law of the land: and the judges in every 
State shall be bound thereby, --------- in the Constitution or laws 

of any State to the contrary nc: - .r.ding. 

3. The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the 
members of the several State legislatures, and all executive and 
judicial officers both of the United States and of the several States* 
shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support this Constitution: 
but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any 
office or public trust under the United Stares. 

12 



THE CONSTITUTION. 

Article \'1I, Ratification of the Constitution. 

The ratification of the conventions of nine States shall be suf- 
ficient for the establishment of this Constitution between the States 
so ratifying the same. 

Done in convention by the unanimous consent of the States 
present,^ the seventeenth day of September, in the year of our 
Lord one thousand seven -hundred and eighty-seven, and of 
the Independence of the United States of America the twelfth. 
In witness whereof, we have hereunto subscribed our names. 

George Washington, President, and Deputy from \'irginia. 

New Hampshire — John Langdon, Nicholas Oilman. 

Massachusetts — Nathaniel Gorham. Kufus King. 

Connecticut — William Samuel Johnson, Roger Sherman. 

New York — Alexander Hamilton. 

New Jersey — William Livingston, David Brearly, William Pat- 
terson, Jonathan Dayton. 

Pennsylvania — Benjamin Frankhn. Thomas Mifflin, Robert 
Morris, George Clymer, Thomas Fitzsimons, Jared Ingersoll, 
James Wilson, Gouverneur Morris. 

Delaware — George Read, Gunning Bedford. Jr.. John Dickin- 
son, Richard Bassett, Jacob Broom. 

Maryland — James McHenr}-, Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer, 
Daniel Carroll. 

Virginia — John Blair. James Madison, Jr. 

North Carolina — William Blount, Richard Dobbs Spaight, 
Hugh Williamson. 

South Carolina — John Rutledge, Charles Cotesworth Pinck- 
ney. Charles Pinckney. Pierce Butler. 

Georgia — William Few, Abraham Baldwin. 

Attest : William Jackson. Secretary. 

1 Rhode Island sent no delegates to the Federal Convention. 



13 



APPENDIX A. 



AMENDMENTS.^ 

Article I. 

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of re- 
ligion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the 
freedom of speech or of the press : or the right of the people 
peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a re- 
dress of grievances. 

Article II. 

A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security- of a free 
State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be 
infringed. 

Article III. 

No soldier shalL in time of peace, be quartered in any house 
without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a man- 
ner to be prescribed by law. 

Article IV. 

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, 
papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, 
shall not be \-iolated. and no warrants shall issue but upon prob- 
able cause, supported by oath or affirmatioru and partic^lla^ly 
describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be 
seized. 

Article V. 

No person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise 
infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand 
jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the 
militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger ; 
nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice 
put in jeopardy of life or limb ; nor shall be compelled in any 
criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of 
life, liberty, or property-, without due process of law : nor shall 
private propeny- be taken for public use without just compensation. 

Article VI. 

In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to 
a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury- of the State and 

1 Amendments I. to X. were proposed by Congress, Sept- 25, 1789, and de- 
clared in force Dec 15, 1791. , 

14 



AMENDMENTS. 

district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which dis- 
trict shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be in- 
formed of the nature and cause of the accusation ; to be confronted 
with the witnesses against him ; to have compulsory process for 
obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of 
counsel for his defense. 

Article VII. 

In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall 
exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, 
and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise reexamined in any 
court of the United States, than according to the rules of the com- 
mon law. 

Article VIII. 

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, 
nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. 

Article IX. 

The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not 
be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. 

Article X. 

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitu- 
tion, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States 
respectively or to the people. 

Article XI.^ 

The judicial power of the United States shall not be construed 
to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted 
against one of the United States by citizens of another State, or 
by citizens or subjects of any foreign State. 

Article XI I.^ 

I. The electors shall meet in their respective States and vote 
bv ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, 
shall not be an inhabitant of the same State with themselves ; they 
shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and 
in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they 

1 Proposed by Congress March 5, 1794, and declared in force Jan, 8, 1798. 

2 Proposed by Congress Dec. 12, 1803, and declared in force Sept, 25, 1804. 

IS 



APPENDIX A. 

shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President and 
of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the number of 
votes for each ; which lists they shall sign and certify, and trans- 
mit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, 
directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the 
Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Repre- 
sentatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be 
counted. The person having the greatest number of votes for 
President shall be the President, if such number be a majority of 
the whole number of electors appointed ; and if no person have 
such majoritv, then from the persons having the highest numbers 
not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the 
House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by biillot,.the 
President. But in choosing the President the votes shall be taken 
by States, the representation from each State having one vote : a 
quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members 
from two thirds of the States, and a majority of all the States shall 
be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives 
shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall 
devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, 
then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the 
death or other constitutional disability of the President. 

2. The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-Pres- 
ident shall be the \''ice-President, if such number be a majority of 
the whole number of electors appointed : and if no person have a 
majoritv, then from the two highest numbers on the list the Senate 
shall choose the \'ice-President : a quorum for the purpose shall 
consist of two thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a ma- 
jority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. 

3. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of Pres- 
ident shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United 
States. 

Article XIII.^ 

1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punish- 
ment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, 
shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their 
jurisdiction. 

2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appro- 
priate legislation. 

1 Proposed by Congress Feb. 1. 1S65, and declared iii force Dec. iS, 1S65. 

16 



AMENDMENTS. 

Article XIV.^ 

1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and sub- 
ject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States 
and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or en- 
force any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of 
citizens of the United States ; nor shall any State deprive any per- 
son of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law ; nor 
deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of 
the laws. 

2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States 
according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number 
of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when 
the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for 
President and Vice-President of the United States, Representa- 
tives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a State, or 
the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male 
inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citi- 
zens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for par- 
ticipation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation 
therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of 
such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens 
twenty-one years of age in such State. 

3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, 
or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil 

• or military, under the United States or under any State, who, hav- 
ing previously taken an oath as a member of Congress, or as an 
officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legisla- 
ture, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support 
the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insur- 
rection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to 
the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two thirds 
of each house, remove such disability. 

4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, author- 
ized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and 
bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall 
not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State 
shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insur- 
rection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the 
loss or emancipation of any slave ; but all such debts, obligations, 
and claims shall be held illegal and void. 

1 Proposed by Congress June 16, 1866, and declared in force July 28, 1868. 

17 



APPENDIX B. 



Aktici^ XV> 

1. The right of citiieas of the United States to role shall not be 
denied or abridged by the United States or by any Stat« on ac> 
count of race» color, or prerious coDdition of serritxide. 

2. The Coi^rcss shall hare pover to enforce this artkk by ap> 
propriate tegwfation. 



APPENDIX 1^ 



LIST OF STATES. 

Shoving the sev«nil dates o£ their ntidcatioQ ot the Federal C 
tKNGi. or of thor admissioa to the Unna, and die popnhtfkwi of each 
accorcfin^ to the censas nearest to the rear of its adnussaoa. 



RATIFIED THE COXSTITUTIOX- 






I>e2ai«ai« Dev-. '. i-<t 

PenB$vbrauua IVc. :;. :~5^ 

Kev ^ierser ........... EVsc. t<v t'<<- 

Geocpji --"> IxDL :. iS> 

CkMkWCtkat Ti=- Cv i'<^ 

Massadwseos V«c>. c-v :->$ 

MarrttDd -\p«~I i-x -."-SS 

ScMtk CarofiBA M»T jt. !->>?< 

N«v HuB(^iui« Twse i:. :->;> 

"\*rr»taiji ^utae aj. f<S> 

N?W \\jtk J«tyj(N.i7>^ 

N.^r-.h OwQ&Kk XOT. it. r;"^ 

KiMxiK kibad MaT>».t79a 



WlaKc 


BiKk. 


Si»T-. 


Tool. 


^CvJ ro 


i.;?«w 


*v5^- 


?*-«*» 


4i4.Cv3C 


5^53X 


J-~5' 


*?4,^5n 


1^-^54 


a.'C^s 


n_»^« 


»^«j» 


v..>5>C 


t-^ 


ivJ^iCH 


fe->*s 


".?■"- 5- ■ 


s.x^z 


^-'■^•i 


S3i5.i4t 


5 ',^-^5-* 


5-*-"J 


- 




jo>-:-.*c 


N^-O 


K^.C^C 


t*^:*^ 


:.>ci 


Kr-^o^H 


*#5M»rj 


:*:.::; 


?>^ 


'>> 


>4«.^ 


4-«-S-I'-5 


Ji^TCC 


i^^-*»' 


JmSsSoS 


J»4-Ma 


4.*?4 


«»v,«« 


5«xta» 


aSi^>* 


4.«-S 


K?«x>rs 


>«>r5i 


t 6«.«S9 


»-»e9 


<^» 


**.«» 



if 









1 Pi iwtt ed bf Congicss F^hrauj a6v iS6f^ md dechoed ia force Maick 50^ 



iS 



LIST OF STATES. 
ADMITTED TO THE UNION. 



Vomont. ... 

Kmtncky 

Touiessee... 

CMuo. 

Louisiaua 

Indiana 

Mississippi... 

Illinois 

Alabama 

Maine 

Missouri..... 

Arkans.\s 

Michigan 

Florida 

Texas 

Iowa 

Wisconsin . . . 
California . . . . 
Minnesota... 

O^gon 

Kansas 

West Virginia 
Nevida 



Date of 
Admission. 



NXTiite. 



Mch. 4, 1791 
June I. i7>)j 
June I. 17^6 
Feb. 10. iSoj 
Av>ril 30. iSij 
Dec. 11, i5i6 
Dec. 10, ij!i7 
Dec. 3. i5tS ; 
Dec- 14. iSio 
Mch. 15. iSio 
Aug. 10, iSji 
June 15, 1J530 
Jan. 20, 1S57 ; 
Mch. 5. 1S45 
Dec 20. 1S45 
Dec jS, 1546 
May ^o. 1S4S ' 
Sept. o. iSjo 
May II. 1S5S i 
Feb. 14. 1S50 ! 
Jan. JO. iSoi 
June 10. ii^3 
Oct. 31. iSc4 



61.133 
45.0JS 

145.75^ 
4^.170 
53.rSS 

JO-.340 

77.174 
311.560 

2 7.v>4'l 
154034 
191, SSi 
304.756 

>31.t>c!5 
171.864 

100.579 

4J4033 

6.S12 



Free 
Black. 



»S5 

"4 
309 

537 

7.5S5 
1,330 

45S 
457 
571 
9*9 

347 
46s 
707 
S17 
397 
S33 
6.^ 
96a 
a59 
laS 
635 
i-.oSo 



Slave. 



»7 
11,830 

13.SS4 

34.660 
190 

3a.Si4 
9>7 

41.879 

10,233 



25.717 
SS,l6l 



Total. 



85,416 

73.077 

105,603 

45.365 
76.556 

147. 17S 
75.44S 
55.16a 

127,901 

298,269 
66,557 
77.639 

212,267 

S4>477 
313.592 
193.214 
305,391 

92,597 
172,123 

52.465 

107,204 

442.013 

6.857 






1790 
1790 
iSoo 
iSoo 
iSio 
iSao 
1820 
iSao 
1820 
iSao 
iSao 
1S40 
1840 
1&40 
1850 
1850 
1S50 
1850 
i860 
i860 
i860 
1870 
1S60 



ADMITTED TO THE UNION SINCE THE ABOLITION OF 

SLAVERY. 



Date of 
Admission. 



Nebraska Mch. 1, 1S67 

Colorado I Aug. i , 1S76 

North Dakota ' Nov. 2, 1SS9 

South Dakou Nov. 2. 1SS9 

Montana I Nov. 8, 1889 



Washington... 
Idaho .... 
Wyoroina. 



Nov. II. iSSq 
July 5. iSoo 
July 10, iSgo 
Jan. 4, 1S96 



White. 



123.117 
IQI.I36 
1S3.I33 
537.2v)0 
127,371 

540.513 
&3.018 

59.-i:5 
205.S99 



Black. 



7S9 

2,435 

373 

541 

1.490 

i,6oa 

act 

022 



Total. 



133.906 
195. >6i 
1S2.496 

327.^51 
128,701 

342,115 
82,219 
60,197 

306 .4S7 



^V 



1870 
18S0 
1890 
1S90 
1S90 
1S90 
1890 
1890 
1890 



19 



APPENDIX C. 
DISTRICT OF COLUiMBIA AND TERRITORIES. 



District of Columbia 

Indian Territory 

New Mexico 

Arizona 

Alaska 

Oklahoma 



Date of 
Organization. 



Mch. 3, 1791 
June 30, 1834 
Sept. 9, 1S50 
Feb. 24, 1863 
July 27, 1868 
April 22, 1889 



White. 



191.532 
302,680 
180,207 
92.903 
30,493 
367.524 



Colored.* 



87,186 
89,380 

15.J03 
30,028 

33,099 
30,807 



Total. 



278,718 
392,060 
195.310 
122,931 
63.592 
398.331 



OU 



1900 
1900 
1900 
1900 
1900 
1900 



* Including Indians not taxed. 



APPENDIX C. 
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS. 

POLITICAL PARTIES, CANDIDATES, METHODS, AND VOTES, FROM 
THE FIRST ELECTION UNTIL THE LATEST.^ 

The first four elections were conducted in accordance with 
the provisions of the Constitution as it was originally framed and 
adopted, the electors voting for two persons, with no indication 
of one to be President, the other Vice-President (see Constitution, 
Article 2, section 3). Subsequent elections have been regulated 
by the Eleventh Amendment to the Constitution, adopted in 1S04. 

First Election, 1789 : Washington and Adams. 

Parties and Candidates. 

There was no definite contest between Federalists and Anti- 
Federalists in the election, and no nomination of candidates. 
Washington was the choice of all for President, but many per- 
sons were suggested in different States for the second place. 

States participating: lo.'^ 



1 Compiled mainly from Stanwood's History of the Presidency. 

a Rhode Island and North Carolina had not yet adopted the Constitution, and 
the vote of New York was lost in consequence of a disagreement between the two 
branches of its legislature. ^ 

20 



PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS. 

Mode of choosing Electors. 

By legislature in Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, South 
Carolina, Georgia ; by vote of the people in Virginia, Maryland, 
and Pennsylvania ; by selection in the legislature from persons 
named by popular vote in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. 

Electoral Vote. 

The ten States participating were entitled to 73 electoral votes, 
but four electors failed to perform their duty. Washington was 
named on all of the 69 votes that were cast. John Adams was 
elected Vice-President by 34 votes. Samuel Huntington received 
2, John Jay 9, John Hancock 4, Robert H. Harrison 6, George 
Clinton 3, John Rutledge 6, John Milton 2, James Armstrong i, 
Edward Telfair i, Benjamin Lincoln i. 

Second Election, 1792: Washington and Adams. 

Parties and Candidates (nominations informal). 

Federalist : George Washington, of Virginia, and John Adams, 
of Massachusetts. 

Anti-Federalist (beginning to be styled Democratic-Republican, 
or simply Republican): George Washington, of Virginia, and 
George Clinton, of New York. 

States participating : 15. 

Mode of choosing Electors. 

By vote of the people in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia ; 
by people and legislature in New Hampshire and Massachu- 
setts ; by members of the legislature, meeting for the purpose 
in districts, in North Carolina ; by legislature in other States. 

Electoral Vote. 

For Washington, 132 (unanimous) ; for Adams, 'j'] ; for Clinton, 
50; for Jefferson, 4; for Aaron Burr, i. 

Third Election, 1796 : Adams and Jefferson. 

Parties and Candidates (nominations informal). 

Federalist : John Adams, of Massachusetts, and Thomas 
Pinkney, of South Carolina. 

Republican : Thomas Jefferson, of Virginia, and Aaron Burr, 
of New York. 

21 



APPENDIX C. 

States participating : i6. 

Mode of choosing Electors. 

By vote of the people in Pennsylvania. Mankind. \'irginia. 
North Carolina; by people and legislature in New Hanipvshire 
and Massachusetts : by legislature in other States. 

Electoral Vote. 

For Adams, 71 ; for Jefferson. 6S: for Thomas Pinknev, 59: 
for Banr. 30: for Samuel Adams, 15 ; for Oliver Ellsworth. 11 : 
for George Clinton. 7 : for John Jay. 5 ; for James Iredell. 3 : for 
George Washington. 2 : for Samuel Johnson. 2 : for John Henry. 
2: for Charles C. Pinckney. i. 

Fourth Election, 1800 : Jefferson and Burr. 

Parties and Candidates ^nominations informall 

Republican: Thomas Jefferson, of \'irginia, and Aaron Burr. 
of New York. 

Federalist : John Adams, of Massachusetts, and Charles C. 
Pinckney. of South Carolina- 
States participating : 16. 
Mode of choosing Electors. 

By vote of the people in Rhode Island, Maryland, Virginia, 
and North Carolina : by legislature in other States. 

Electoral Vote. 

For Jefferson, in New York, Pennsyh-ania, Mar^-land, Virginia, 
North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky. Termessee. 

total. 73. 

For Burr, same Srates. total. 73. 

For Adams, in New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts. 
Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey. Pennsylvania, Delaware. 
Mar)l.\nd, North Carolina, total. 6$. 

For Pinckney, in s,ame States, total, 64. 

For John Jay. Rhode Island, total, i. 

Jefferson and Burr having received an equal vote, and th.\t 
vote a m.ijority of the whole, the election went to the House of 
Representatives, and was decided after 35 unsuccessful b,vllots 
in favor of Jeff'erson for President, making Burr Vice-President. 
Jefferson received 55 votes, Burr 49. 



PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS. 

Fifth Election, 1804 : Jefferson and Clinton. 

Parties and Candidates. 

Republican i^nominations bv a caucus of Congressmen): Thomas 
Jefferson, of \'irginia, and Cieorge Clinton, of New York. 

Federalist (nominations informal) : Charles C. Pinckney, of 
South Carolina, and Rufus King, of New York. 

States participating : 17. 

Mode of choosing Electors. 

By legislature in Vermont, Connecticut, New York, Delaware, 
South Carolina, Cieorgia, Tennessee ; by vote of the people in 
districts in Maryland, North Carolina, Kentucky; by vote of the 
people on general tickets in other States. 

Electoral Vote. 

For Jefferson and Clinton in all States excepting Connecticiit, 
Delaware, and Maryland, total, 162. 

For Pinckney and King, in the three States named, total, 14. 

Sixth Election, 1808 : Madison and Clinton. 

Parties and Candidates. 

Republican ^ (nominations by a caucus of Congressmen) : James 
Madison, of Virginia, and George Clinton, of New York. 

Federalist (nominations informal) : Charles C. Pinckney, of 
South Carolina, and Rufus King, of New York. 

States participating : 17. 

Mode of choosing Electors. 

By legislature in Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New 
York, Delaware, South Carolina, Georgia; by popular vote in 
districts in Maryland. North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee: by 
popular vote on general tickets in other States. 

Electoral Vote for President. 

For Madison, in Vermont, New York (13 out of 19), New Jer- 

1 The party was divided by the nomination of Madison, James Monroe in Vir- 
ginia taking the field as an independent candidate, and George CUnton in New 
York being supported by some Republicans for President instead of Vice-Presi- 
dent. 



23 



APPENDIX C 

sey, Pennsylvania, Manland, Mrginia, North Carolina, South 
Carolina. Georgia. Kentucky. Tennessee. Ohio, total, 122. 

For Pinckney. New Hampshire. Massachusetts, Rhode Island. 
Connecticut, Delaware, Mar}-land, North Carolina, total. 47. 

For Qinton. New York. 6. 

Electoral Vote for Vice-President. 

Clinton. 113 : King. 4-: John Langdon, o; Madison, 3 : Mon- 
roe, 3. 

Seventh Election. 1812 : Madison and Gerry. 

Parties and Candidates. 

Republican (nominations by Congressional caucus^: James 
Madison, of Virginia, and Elbridge Gern.-. of Massachusetts. 

Coalition. Federalist and Clintonian : De Witt Clinton, of New 
York, and Jared IngersoU. of Pennsylvania- 
States participating : 18. 
Mode of choosing Electors. 

By legislature in \'ermont, Connecticut, New York. New 
Jersey, Delaware. North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, 
Louisiana : by vote of the people in districts in Massachusetts. 
Maryland, Kentucky. Tennessee : by popular vote on gener.ii 
tickets in other States. 

Electoral Vote for President. 

For Madison, in Vermont, Pennsyh-ania. Maryland ^^6 out of 
iiX Virginia, Nonh Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Ken- 
tucky. Tennessee. Louisiana. Ohio, total, izS, 

For De Witt Clinton, in New Hampshire. Massachusetts, 
Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York. New Jei'sey. Delaware. 
Mainland ^5 out of i iX total. Sq. 

Electoral Vote for Vice-President. 
Gerr}-. 131 : IngersoU. S6. 

Eighth Election. 1816 : Monroe and Tompkins. 

Parties and Candidates. 

Republican ^^nominations by Congressional caucus^ : James 
Monroe, of Virginia, and Daniel D. Tompkins, of New York. 
Federalist ^^no formal nomination'^ : Rufus King, of New York. 

^4 



PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS. 

States participating : 19, 
Mode of choosing Electors. 

Same as in the preceding election. 
Electoral Vote for President. 

For Monroe, in all States except Massachusetts, Connectictit, 
Delaware, total, 1S3. 

For King, in the three States named, total. 34. 

Electoral Vote for Vice-President. 

Tompkins. 1S3: John E. Howard, of ^Lar^•land, 22; scatter- 
ing, 12. 

Ninth Election, 1820 : Monroe and Tompkins. 

Parties and Candidates. 

Republican (nominations informal): James Monroe, of Mrginia, 
and Daniel D. Tompkins, of New York. 
Federalist : no nomination. 

States participating: 24. 

Mode of choosing Electors. 

By legislature in \'ermont. New York, Delaware, South Caro- 
lina, Georgia, Louisiana : by vote of the people in districts in 
Maine, ALar^-Iand, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri : by vote of the 
people on general tickets in other States, 

Electoral Vote for President. 

For James Monroe, all votes except one, in New Hampshire, 
total, 231. 

For John Ouincy Adams, i. 

Electoral Vote for Vice-President. 

Tompkins, 21S: Richard Stockton, 8: scattering, 6. 

Tenth Election, 1824 : Adams and Calhoun. 

Parties and Candidates. 

Democratic-Republican (now called Democratic") : William 
H. Crawford, of Georgia, and Albert Gallatin, of Pennsylvania 
(nominated for President and Vice-President by Congressional 
caucus): John Quincy Adams, of Massachusetts, Andrew Jackson, 
of Tennessee, and Henry Clay, of Kentucky (independently nomi- 

25 



APPENDIX C 

nated for President) ; John C. Calhoun, of Sooth CanAaa (inde- 
pendently nominated for Vice-President*. 

States participating : 24. 
Mode of choosing Electors. 

Same as in preceding election. 
Electoral Vote for President. 

For Jackson, in New York (i out of 36\ New Jersey. Pennsyl- 
\-ama. Maryland 1 7 out of 1 1 ». North Carolina. South Carolina, 
Alabama, Mississippi. Louisiana 13 out of 5', Tennessee, Indiana, 
Illinois (2 out of 3\ total, 99. 

For Adams, in the six New England States, New York 126 
out of 36), Delaware (i out of 3), Maryland ^^3 out of 11), Louisi- 
ana (2 out of 5 V Illinois ( i out of 3X totaL 84- 

For Crawford. New York 15 out of ^6\ Delaware (2 oat of 3), 
Maryland (I out of iiX Virgima. Georgia, total, 41. 

For Clay, New York v4 out of 361, Kentucky. Missouri, Ohio, 
total 37. 

Electoral Vote for Vice-President. 

Calhoim, 1S2; Nathan Sanford, 30: Nathaniel Macon, 24: 
scattwing. 24- 

None of the candidates for President having received a ma- 
jority of the electoral votes, the House of Representatives caat- 
pleted the election, choosing John Qmncy Adams, by Sj votes, 
against 71 for Jackson, and 54 for Crawford. 

The electoral vote made Mr. Calhoun Vice-President. 

Eleventh Election, 1828 : Jackson and Calhoun. 

Parties smd Candidates. 

Democratic (nominations by state legislarures, conventions, 
and public meetings) : Andrew Jackson, of Tennessee, and John 
C. Calhoun, of South Carolina- 
National Republican (nominations infonoal): John Quincy 
Adams, of Massachusetts, and Richard Rush, of Pennsyh-ania. 

States participating : 24. 
Mode of choosing Electors. 

Bv legislature in Delaware and South Carolina : by vote of 
the people in districts in Maine, New York. Maryland, Tennes- 
see : bv vote of the people on general tickets in other States. 

26 



PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS. 

Popular Majorities. 

For lackson. in New York. Pennsylvania, Virjnnia, North 
Carolina, G^eorg^ia, Alabama. Mississippi. Louisiana, Kentucky, 
Tennessee, Missouri. O' \ ' a. Illinois. 

For Adams, in Maine. N . v. . . i^shire. A'ermoni. Massachu- 
setts, Rhode Island. Connecticu:, N^v. Jersey, Maryland. 

Total Popular Vote. 

For Jackson, 647.276 : for Adams, 5oS,o64. 
Electoral Vote. 

For President. Jackson, 178: Adams. S3. 

For \'ice-President. Calhoun. 171: Rush. S3 : William Smith. 7. 

Twelfth EUection. 1832 : Jackson and Van Buren. 

Parties and Candidates. 

Democratic ^^nominations by national convention"! : Andrew- 
Jackson, of Tennessee, and Martin Van Buren. of New York. 

National-Republican vnominations by national convention^: 
Henn.- Clay, of Kentucky, and John Sergeant, of Pennsylvania. 

Anti-Masonic (^nominations by national convention^ : William 
Wirt, of M.iryland. and Amos Elmaker. of Pennsylvania, 

States participating : 24. 

Mode of choosing Electors. 

By legislature in South Carolina ; by vote of the people in dis- 
tricts in Mar)land : by vote of the people on general tickets in 
other States. 

Popular Majorities. 

For Jackson, in Maine. New Hampshire, New York. New Jer- 
sey. Pennsylvania, \'irgir.i.i. Xcr::i Carolina, Georgia, Missis- 
sippi, Louisiana. Tennessee. ' -s uri. Ohio. Indiana, Illinois. 

For Clay, in Massachuse::s. K , ,.: Is ..:.d. Connecticut. Dela- 
ware, Maryland. Kentucky. 

Total Popular Vote. 

For Jackson, 6S7,502 : for Clay. 530, 1S9. 

Electoral Vote. 

For President, Jackson, 219; Clay, 49: Wirt, 7 ; John Floyd, 
II. 



APPENDIX C. 

For Vice-President, Van Buren. 1S9; Sergeant, 49; Elmaker. 
7: William Wilkins, 30; Henn.- Lee. 11. 

Thirteenth Election, 1836 : Van Buren and Johnson. 

Parties and Candidates. 

Democratic (nominations by convention) : Martin Van Buren, 
of New York, and Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky. 

Whig and Independent (nominations in various modes'): for 
President. William Henry Harrison, of Ohio. John McLean, of 
Ohio. Hugh L. White, of Tennessee. Daniel Webster, of Massa- 
chusetts : for Vice-President, Francis Granger, of New York, 
and John Tyler, of \*irginia. 

States participating : 26. 

Mode of choosing Electors. 

By legislature in South Carolina ; by popular vote on general 
tickets in other States.^ 

Popular Majorities. 

For Van Buren. in Maine. New Hampshire. Rhode Island, 
Connecticut, New York. Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carohna, 
Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois. 
Michigan. 

For the various opposing candidates, in \*ermont. Massachu- 
setts, New Jersey. Delaware, Man,*land, Georgia, Kentucky. 
Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana. 

Total Popular Vote. 

For Van Buren, 762,97s : for opposition candidates, 736,250. 
Electoral Vote. 

For President. Van Buren. 170; Harrison. 73: White, 26: 
Webster. 14: Willie P. Mangum, it. 

For Vice-President. Johnson. 147: Granger. 77: Tyler. 47; 
William Smith, 23. 

1 From this time until 1S6S the mode of choosing electors remained unchanged, 
the sole exception to their election by p>opular vote on general tickets being in 
South Carolina, 



28 



PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS. 
Fourteenth Election, 1840 : Harrison and Tyler. 

Parties and Candidates. 

Whig (nominations by convention^): William H. Harrison, of 
Ohio, and John Tyler, of Virginia. 

Democratic (nomination by convention) : Martin Van Buren, 
of New York. (No nomination for Vice-President made.) 

Liberty Party (nominations by convention) : James G. Birney, 
of New York, and Thomas Earl, of Pennsylvania. 

States participating : 26. 
Popular Majorities. 

For Harrison, in Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode 
Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Dela- 
ware, Maryland, North Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, 
Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan. 

For Van Buren, in New Hampshire, Virginia, Alabama, IVIis- 
souri, Arkansas, Illinois. 

Total Popular Vote. 

For Harrison, 1,275,016; for Van Buren, 1,129,102; for Bir- 
ney, 7069. 

Electoral Vote. 

For President, Harrison, 234 ; Van Buren, 60. 
For Vice-President, Tyler, 234; R. M. Johnson, 48; L. W. 
Tazewell, 11 ; James K. Polk, i. 

Fifteenth Election, 1844 : Polk and Dallas. 

Parties and Candidates. 

Democratic: James K. Polk, of Tennessee, and George M. 
Dallas, of Pennsylvania. 

Whig : Henry Clay, of Kentucky, and Theodore Frelinghuy- 
sen, of New Jersey. 

Liberty Party : James G. Birney, of New York, and Thomas 
Morris, of Ohio. 

States participating : 26. 

1 From this time all party nominations for the presidency and vice-presidency 
were made by national conventions. 

29 



APPENDIX C 

Popular majorities. 

For Polk, in Maine, New Hampshire, New York, 
svhrania, Mrginia. Georgia, Alabama, MississippL Lo wis i aw i , 
Missowi, Arkansas. Michigan, lodiaaa. IQinois. 

For day. in Vermont. Massachusetts, Rhode I^and, Con- 
necticut New Jersey, Ddaware. Marjiand. North Carotiaa, 
Kentucky, T^inessee, Ohio. 

Total popular vote. 

For Polk, iv53r.243 : for day, 1,299^062: for Bimcj, 63,50a 

Electoral vote. 

For Polk and Dalbs, 170 ; for day and FrdLnghuysen, 105. 

Sixt-eent±i Election. 1S43 : Taylor and Fillmore. 

pATties ^-/ ~^-r dates 

New York. 

I>einocratic : Lewis Cass, of Michigfan. and \V. — 
of Kentucky. 

Free Soil Party : Mardn ^'an Buren, of New York, and 
Qiailes Francis Adams, of MassAciiuseits. 

States pvarticipating : 5a 
Popular majorities. 

For Taylor, in Connecucjt, Delaxrare. F.oriia, GecM^'a, Ken- 
tucky, Louisiaxxa. Maryland, Mai^ichuse:ti^ New Jersey. New 
York, NcHTth Carolina. Pennsylvania. R:i cvie Island. Tennessee, 
Vermont- 

For Cass, in .A-labama. Arkansas. Illinois. Indiana, iow^, 
Maine. Michigan. Mississippi. Missouri, New Hampshire, Oh.v\ 
Texas^ \'irginia, Wisconsin. 

Total popular vote. 

For Tayloa-. i.36o.cv)q; for Cass^ 1.220.544; for Van Bcren. 
291.565. 

Electoral vote. 

For Taylor and Filhnore. 165 ; for Ofis wd BttOer, 127. 



30 



PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS. 

Seventeenth Election, 1852 : Fierce and ELing. 
Parties and Candidates. 

Democratic : Franklin Pierce^ of New Hampshire, and 
William R. King, of Al.ibama. 

Whig: Winiield Scott, of New Jersey, and William A. 
Grah.im. of North CaroHna, 

Free Soil Party: John P. Hale, of New Hampshire, and 
George W. Julian, of Indiana. 

States participating : 31. 
Popular majorities. 

For Pierce, in all States except Kentucky, Massachusetts. Ten- 
nessee, and Vermont, which gave small majorities for Scotu 

Total popular vote. 

For Pierce. 1,601.474: for Scott 1.3S6.580: for Hale. 150.667. 

Electoral vote. 

For Pierce and King. 254; for Scott .md Gr.ih.im, 42. 

Eighteenth Election, 1856 : Buchanan and 
Breckenridge. 
Parties and Candidates. 

Democratic : James Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, and John C. 
Breckenridge, of Kentucky. 

Republican : John C. Fremont of California, and William L. 
Daston, of New Jersey. 

American and Whig: Millard Fillmore, of New York, and 
Andrew J. Donelson, of Tennessee. 

States participating : 31. 

Popular Majorities and Pluralities. 

For Buchanan, in Alabama, Arkans.is. Califomisu, Delaware, 
Florida. Georgia. Illinois. Indiana. Kentucky. Louisiana, Mis- 
sissippi. Missouri. New Jersey. North Carolina, Pennsylvania, 
Tennessee. Texas, Virginia, 

For Fre'mont, in Connecticut. Iowa, Maine. M.^ss.ichusetts, 
Michigan. New Hanipshire. New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, 
Vermont, Wisconsin. 

For Fillmore, in Maryland. 

31 



APPENDIX C. 

Total Popular Vote. 

For Buchanan, 1,838,169; for Fremont, 1,341,264; for Fill- 
more, S74.534. 

Electoral Vote. 

For Buchanan and Breckenridge, 174; for Fremont and Day- 
ton, 114; for Fillmore and Donelson, 8. 

Nineteenth Election, 1860: Lincoln and Hamlin. 

Parties and Candidates. 

Republican : Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, and Hannibal 
Hamlin, of Maine. 

Democratic (northern wing): Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois, 
and Herschel V. Johnson, of Georgia. 

Democratic (southern wing): John C. Breckenridge, of Ken- 
tucky, and Joseph Lane, of Oregon. 

Constitutional Union Party : John Bell, of Tennessee, and 
Edward Everett, of Massachusetts. 

States participating : 33. 

Popular Majorities and Pluralities. 

For Lincoln, in California, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, 
Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan. Minnesota. New Hampshire, 
New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, 
Wisconsin. 

For Breckinridge, in Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, 
Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, 
Texas. 

For Bell, in Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia. 
For Douglas, in Missouri and New Jersey. 

Total Popular Vote. 

For Lincoln, 1,866,452; for Douglas, 1,376,957; for Brecken- 
ridge, 849,781 ; for Bell, 588,879. 

Electoral Vote. 

For Lincoln and Hamlin, 180; for Breckenridge and Lane, 
72; for Bell and Everett, 39 ; for Douglas and Johnson, 12. 



32 



PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS. 

Twentieth Election, 1864: Lincoln and Johnson. 

Parties and Candidates. 

Republican : Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, and Andrew John- 
son, of Tennessee. 

Democratic : George B. McClellan, of New Jersey, and George 
H. Pendleton, of Ohio. 

States participating: 25. 

Popular Majorities. 

For Lincoln, in all States except Delaware, Kentucky, and 
New Jersey, which gave majorities for McClellan. 

Total Popular Vote. 

For Lincoln, 2,330,552; for McClellan, 1,835,985; soldiers' 
vote for Lincoln, 116,887; for McClellan, 33,748. 

Electoral Vote. 

For Lincoln and Johnson, 212; for McClellan and Pendle- 
ton, 21. 

Twenty-first Election, 1868 : Grant and Colfax. 

Parties and Candidates. 

Republican : Ulysses S. Grant, of Illinois, and Schuyler Col- 
fax, of Indiana. 

Democratic: Horatio Seymour, of New York, and Francis P. 
Blair, Jr., of Missouri. 

States participating: 33.^ 
Mode of choosing Electors. 

By legislature in Florida ; by popular vote on general tickets 
in other States, including South Carolina. 

Popular Majorities : 

For Grant, in all States except Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, 
Louisiana, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Oregon, 
which gave majorities for Seymour. 

Total Popular Vote. 

For Grant, 3,012,833; for Seymour, 2,703,249. 

1 Virginia, Mississippi, and Texas had not yet been readmitted to representa- 
tion in Congress, and did not take part in the election. 

33 



APPEXPIX C. 

Electoral Vote. 

For Grant and Colfax, -u ; lor Seymour and Blair. So. 

Twenty-second Election. 187 il : Grant and Wilson. 

Parties and Candidates. 

Republican: I'ly&ses S. Grant, of Illinois, an(J Henry Wilson, 
of Massachusetts. 

Coalition ^Liberal-Republican and DemocraticV. Horace Gree- 
ley, of New York, and B. Gratz Brown, of Missouri. 

Democratic: Charles O'Conor. of New York, and John Quincy 
Adams, of M.issachusetts. 

Prohibition: James Black, of Pennsylvania, and John Russell, 
of Michigan. 

States participating : 37. 

Popular Majorities. 

For Grant, in all States except Georgia. Kentucky. Louisiana. 
Mar)l.ind, Missouri. Tennessee, and Tex.is. which gave majori- 
ties for Greeley. 

Total Popular Vote. 

For Grant. 5.597.13-: for Greeley. 2,834.125 : for O'Coi.or. 
204S9 ; for Black. 5.608. 

Electoral Vote. 

For President.'- Grant. 2S0, Thom,is A. Hendricks, 42, B. Gratr 
Brown, iS, Greeley. 3. Charles J. Jenkins, 2, David Davis, i. 

For Vice-President, Wilson, 2S6. Brown. 47. Julian. 5. scatter- 
ing. 14. 

Twenty-Third Election, lS7o : Hayes and Wheeler. 

Parties and Cdndidites. 

Republican: Rutherforvi B. Hayes, of Ohio, and ^^' "' •.:r. .A 
Wheeler, of New York. 

Democmtic: Samuel J. Tilden, of New York, and Thomas A. 
Hendricks, of Indi.ina. 

Independent Nation,U. or Greenback Party: Peter Cooper, of 
New York, and Samuel F. Cary. of Ohio. 

I Mr. Gre«ley died before the elector^ rote was cast. 

34 



PKESIDKNTIAL KLECTIONS. 

Prohibition: (irccn Clay Smith, of Kentucky, and G. T. 
Stewart, of Ohio. 

States participating : 38. 
Popular Majorities. 

For Hayes, in California, Illinf)is, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Massa- 
chusetts, Michi^^an, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hamp- 
shire, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, 
Wisconsin. 

For Tilden, in Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, 
(Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, 
New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vir- 
ginia, and West Virginia. 

In South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana there were disputed 
returns, and in Oregon one Republican elector chosen was de- 
clared ineligible by the governor, who gave a certificate to the 
highest candidate on the Democratic list. 

Total Popular Vote. 

For Mayes, according to Republican returns from the States 
in dispute, 4,036,298, according to Democratic returns, 4,033,768 ; 
for Tilden, according to Democratic returns, 4,300,590; accord- 
ing to Republican returns, 4,285,992; for Cooper, 81,737; for 
Smith, 9522. 

Electoral Vote. 

As determined by the Electoral Commission, see p. 575 ; for 
Hayes and Wheeler, 185 ; for Tilden and Hendricks, 184. 

Twenty-fourth Election, 1880 : Garfield and Arthur. 

Parties and Candidates. 

Republican : James A. Garfield, of Ohio, and Chester A. 
Arthur, of New York. 

Democratic: Winfield S. Hancock, of Pennsylvania, and 
William H. English, of Indiana. 

Independent National or Greenback Party: James B. Weaver, 
of Iowa, and B. J. Chambers, of Texas. 

Prohibition : Neal Dow, of Maine, and A. M. Thompson, of 
Ohio. 



35 



APPENDIX C 

States participating : 38. 
Popular Majorities. 

For Gartteld. in CoJorado, Connecticiit. Ilfinots. Indiana, Iowa. 
KaniOis Maine. Massachusetts. Michigan. Minnesota. Nebraska. 
New Hampshire, New York. Ohio. Or^jon, Pennsylvania, Rhode 
Island. Vermont. Wisconsin. 

For Hancock, in Alabama. Arkansas, Calitomia, Delaware, 
Florida, Georgix Kentucky. Louisiana, Maryland. Mississippi. 
Missouri. Nevada, New Jersey. North Carohna, South Carolina, 
Tennessee. Texas, Virginia, West Virginia. 

Total Poptilar Vote. 

For Garneld, 4^54,416; for Hancock. 4,444,952; for Weaver. 
308,578 : for Dow, io»305. 

Electoral Vote. 

For Gardeld and Arthur. J14 ; for Hancock and English, 155- 

Twenty-tifth Election. 1SS4 : Cleveland and 
Hendricks. 

Parties and Candidates, 

Democratic : Ga^>-er Cle\-eland, of New York, and Tlnmas A. 
Hendricks, of Indi.in3- 

Kepublican : Tames G. Blaine, of Maine, and John A. Lc^an, 
of Illinois, 

Anti-Monopohr : Benjamin F. Butler, of Massachusetts, and 
Alanson M. West, of Mississippi. 

Greenback : Beniamin F. Butler, of Massachusetts, and Alan- 
son M. West, of Mississippi. 

l^^hibition : John P, St. John, of Kansas, and William Daniel, 
of Mar}'land. 

States participating : 38. 
Popular Majorities, 

For Clevel.ind. in .\l,il\\ra-i, .Arkansas, Connecdcu:. 
Florida, Georgi.1, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland. Mis- 
sissippi, Missouri. New Jersey. New York. Nv ^ "^ 
Carolina. Tennessee. Texas, \"rginia. West ". „ 

For Blaine^ in California, Colorado, Illin<MS, Iowa, Kansas. 
Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebrask.i, Nevada. 

36 



PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS. 

New Hampshire. Ohio. Oreg:on. Pennsylvania. Rhode Island. 
\'eimont. Wisconsin. 

Total Popular Vote. 

For Cleveland, 4.S74.QS6: for Blaine. 4,851.981 ; for Butler. 
^TS'37o: St. John. iyO.^6^ 

Electoral Vote. 

For Cleveland and Hendricks. 210 : for Blaine and Log-an. 1S2. 

Twenty-sixth Election, 1888 : Harrison and Morton. 

Parties and Candidates. 

Republican : Benj.imin Harrison, of Indian.a, and Levi P. 
Morton, of New York. 

Democratic: Grover Cle\'eland. of New York, and Allen G. 
Thurman. of Ohio. 

National Prohibition Party : Clinton B. Fiske. of New Jersev. 
and John A. Brooks, of Missouri. 

Union Labor Party : Alson J. Streeter. of Illinois, and Samuel 
Evans, of Texas. 

L"^nited Labor Party : Robert H. Cowdrey. of Illinois, and \V. 
H. T. Wakefield, of Kansas. 

States participating : 38. 

Popular Majorities. 

For Harrison, in California, Colorado, Illinois. Indiana. Iowa, 
Kansas. >Liine. Massachusetts. Michig^an. Minnesota, Nebraska, 
Ne\-ada. New Hampshire. New York. Ohio, Oregon. Pennsyl- 
>*ani.i, Rhode Island. \'ermont. Wisconsin. 

For Cleveland, in Alabama. Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware. 
Florid.a, Georgia, Kentucky. Louisiana, Maryland. Mississippi. 
Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennes- 
see. Texas. Virpni.^, West Virginia. 

Total Popular Vote. 

For Harrison. 5.439.S53 ; for Cleveland. 5.540.329: for Fiske. 
249.506: for Streeter, 146.935; for Cowdrey, 1591- 

Electoral Vote. 

For Harrison and Morton, 233: for Cleveland and Thurman. 
1 68. 

37 



APPENDIX C. 

Twenty-seventh Election. 1892: Cleveland and 

Stevenson. 
Parties and Candidates. 

Democratic : Grover Qeveland, of New York, and Adlai E. 
Stevenson, of Illinois, 

Republican: Benjamin Harrison, of Indiana, and Whitelaw 
Reid, of New York. 

National Prohibition Pam : John Bidwell. of California, and 
J. B. Cranfill, of Texas. 

People's or Populist Party : James B. Weavw. of Iowa, and 
James G. Field, of Virginia. 

Socialist Labor Party : Simon Wing, of Massachuserts. and 
Charles H. Matchen, of New Yca-k. 

States participating : 44. 

Popular Ma crities ar.i Pluralities. 

For Cleveland, in ALibani.a. Arkansas, California, Connecticut. 
Delaware, Florida, Georgia. Illinois. Indiana, Kentucky. Louisi- 
ana. Maryland, Mississippi. Missouri. New Jersey, New York, 
North Carolina. South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, 
West Virginia, Wisconsin. 

For Harrison, in Iowa, Maine. Massachusetts, Michigan. 
Minnesota, Montan.a, Nebraska, New Hampvshire, Ohio, Oregon. 
Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota. Vermont Wash- 
ington. Wyoming. 

For Weaver,! in Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Nevada, North 
Dakota. 
Total Popular Vote. 

For QeveJand. 5.556.543 : for Harrison. 5.1 75.5S2 : for Weaver. 
i.o4aSS6: for BidweU, 255.S41 : for Wing. 21.532, 

Electoral Vote. 

For Cleveland and Stevenson, 277 ; for Hairiscm and Reid. 
145 : for Weaver and Field. 22, 

1 The Der--5cvTit> ixyminated no ekctcrs in Colorado, Idaho, Kansas. North 
Dakota, and Wyor.v.ng, giving their rotes in those States to the Popofist candi- 
dates, .\nianoes with the Populists rniere made in a few wxthem States Iw^ 
die Demoaats. and in several soathetn States hf the RepubficaRS. Tlds sabe^ 
it impossible to detennine precbdy the popolar vote cast bf the sevenl pwrties. 



;^^ 



PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS. 

Twenty-eighth Election, 1896: McKinley and 

Hobart. 
Parties and Candidates. 

Republican : William McKinley, of Ohio, and C'.iinet A. Ho- 
bart, of New Jersey. 

Democratic : William J. Bryan, of Nebraska, and Arthur 
Sewall. of Maine. 

People's or Populist Party: William J, liryan, of Nebraska, 
and Thomas E. Watson, of Cieorgia. 

National Silver Party: William J. Bryan, of Nebraska, and 
Arthur Sewall, of Maine. 

National Democratic: John M. Palmer, of Illinois, and 
Simon B. Buckner, of Kentucky. 

Socialist Labor Party: Charles H. Matchett, of New York, 
and Matthew Maguire, of New Jersey. 

Prohibition Party : Jo.shua Levering, of Maryland, and Hale 
Johnson, of Illinois, 

National Party (a secession from the Prohibition): Charles E. 
Bentley, of Nebraska, and James H. Southgate, of North Caro- 
lina. 

States participating : 45. 

Popular Majorities and Pluralities. 

For McKinley, in California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, 
Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, 
Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, 
North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Ver- 
mont, West Virginia, Wisconsin. 

For Bryan, in Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, 
Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Ne- 
braska, Nevada, North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota, 
Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wyoming. 
Total Popular Vote. 

For McKinley, 7,111,607; for Bryan, 6,509,052; for Palmer, 
134,645; for Levering, 131,312; for Matchett, 36,373; for Bent- 
ley, 13,968. 
Electoral Vote. 

For President, McKinlej', 271, Bryan, 176. 

For Vice-President, Hobart, 271, Sewall, 149, Watson, 27, 

39 



APPENDIX C. 

Twenty-ninth Election, 1900: McKinley and 
Roosevelt. 

Parties and Candidates. 

Republican ; Wiliiiim McKinley, of Ohio, and Theodore Roose- 
velt, of New York. 

Democratic : William J. Bn.an. of Nebraska, and Adlai E. 
Stevenson, of Illinois. 

People's or Populist Party \ divided) : Middle-of-the-Road 
Populists : Wharton Barker, of Pennsylvania, and Ignatius 
DonneUy, of Minnesota: Fusion wing: William J. Bryan, of 
Nebraska, and Charles A. Towne. of Minnesota. 

Silver Republican : William J. Br^-an. of Nebraska, and 
Adlai E. Stevenson, of Illinois, 

Prohibition Part)- : John G. WooUey. of Illinois, and Henry 
B. Metcalf, of Rhode Island. 

United Christian Part\- : Jonah F. R. Leonard, of lowa^ and 
Da\id H. Martin, of Pennsylvania. 

Social Democratic: Eugene ^^ Debs, of Illinois, and Job 
Harriman, of California. 

Socialist Labor Party: Joseph F. MaUoney, of Massachusetts, 
and \'alentine Remmel, of Pennsylvania. 

L'nion Reform Party (favoring direct legislation) : Seth H. 
Ellis, of Ohia and Samuel T. Nicholson, of Peansyl\~ania. 

States participating: 45. 

Popular Majorities and Pluralities. 

For McKinley, in California, Connecticut, D^ware, lOinois, 
Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michi- 
gan. Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey. New 
York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania. Rhode 
Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont. Washington. West \ ir 
ginia, Wisconsin. Wyoming. 

For Br\an. in Alabama, Arkansas, Colorada Florida. Georgia, 
Idaho. Kentucky. Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, 
Nevada, North Carcdina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Tejcas. 
Virginia. 

Total Popular Vo:e. 

For .McKinley. -.206.677: for Brvan, 6;-.;.;o-: for Barker. 



IMPORTANT MEASURES OF THE GOVERNMENT. 

50.373; for Woolley, 208,555; for Leonard, 1060; for Debs, 
84,003; for Malloney. 39.537; for Ellis, 5698. 

Electoral Vote. 

For McKinley and Roosevelt, 292 ; for Bryan and Stevenson, 
IBS' 



APPENDIX D. 

IMPORTANT MEASURES OF THE NATIONAL 
GOVERNMENT. 

A CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY. 

Administration of President Washington. 

1789. First tariff and tonnage acts. — Organization of the Federal 
Treasury, State, and War Departments. — Organization of a Fed- 
eral judiciary system. — Confirmation of the Ordinance of 1787, 
relative to the Northwest Territory. — Proposal and adoption of 
the first ten Amendments to the Federal Constitution. 

1790. Funding the foreign and domestic debt of the late Con- 
federation. — Assumption and funding of the war debts of the 
States. — Acquisition and nationalization of the District of Colum- 
bia, for the location of a national capital. — Resolutions declaring 
the powerlessness of Congress to interfere with slavery in the 
States. — First Census Act. — First Patent Law. — First Copy- 
right Law. 

1791. Revision of the tariff . — Excise Law. — Act creating the 
first Bank of the LTnited States. — Admission of Vermont and 
Kentucky to the Union, 

1793. Proclamation of neutrality in the war between England 
and France. — Demand for the recall of •' Citizen Genet," minister 
from France. 

1794. Suppression of the " Whiskey Rebellion " in western Penn- 
sylvania. — Negotiation and ratification of the Jay Treaty wij^ 
England. 

1795- Conclusion of treaty with Spain, freeing the navigation of 
the Mississippi. 

1796. Admission of Tennessee to the Union. 

41 



APPENDIX D. 
Administration of President John Adams. 

1797. Pacificatory mission of three envoys extraordinary to 
France. 

1798. War measures consequent on the "X. Y. Z. Correspond- 
ence," — Alien and Sedition Acts. — Organization of the Territory 
of Mississippi. 

1800. New treaty with France, originating '' French Spoliation 
claims." — Organization of the Territories of Ohio and Indiana. 

1801. Appointment of John Marshall to be Chief Justice of the 
United States. 

Administration of President Jefferson. 

1801. Chastisement of the pirates of Tripoli. — Purchase of 
Louisiana from Napoleon I. 

1802. Organization of the Territory of Orleans and the District 
of Louisiana. 

1803. Expedition under Lewis and Clark sent to explore the 
Missouri, and beyond. 

1805. Treaty with Tripoli. — Organization of the Territory of 
Michigan. 

1806. Act prohibiting the importation of British goods. 

1807. Enforcement of Non-Importation Act. — Passage of Em- 
bargo -A.ct. — Act prohibiting the African slave trade. 

1809. Enlargement of powers for enforcement of Embargo Act. 
— Repeal of Embargo Act. — Substitution of non-intercourse with 
Great Britain and France. — Organization of the Territory of 
Illinois. 

Administration of President Madison. 

1809. Suspension and renewal of Non-Intercourse Act, as it 
related to Great Britain. 

1810. Provisional repeal of Non-Intercourse Act. — Commer- 
cial intercourse with Great Britain interdicted. — Occupation of 
West Florida. — Act authorizing the adoption of a state constitu- 
tion in the Territory of Orleans. 

181 1. Dissolution of the United States Bank. 

1812. Admission of the Territory of Orleans as a State, named 
Louisiana. — .Annexation of West Florida in part to the new State 

42 



IMPORTANT MEASURES OF THE GOVERNMENT. 

and in part to the Territory of Mississippi. — Act ordering an em- 
bargo for ninety days. — Declaration of war with Great Britain. 

1815. Treaty of Ghent, restoring peace with Great Britain. — 
War, resulting in a treaty, with the Dey of Algiers. 

1816. Charter of the second Bank of the United States. — Ad- 
mission of Indiana to the Union. — Tariff Act, increasing protec- 
tive duties. — Appropriation for "internal improvements."' 

Administration of President Monroe. 

1817. War with the Seminole Indians of Florida. — Admission 
of Mississippi to the Union. 

1818. Convention with Great Britain establishing part of north- 
western boundary, with joint occupancy of Oregon. — Admission 
of Illinois to the Union. 

1819. Purchase of West Florida from Spain, with a definition of 
Spanish boundary lines in the west. — Admission of Alabama to 
the Union. 

1820. The Missouri Compromise Act. — Admission of Maine to 
the Union. — Act fixing a four years' term for many Federal offices. 

1820. Admission of Missouri to the Union. 

1823. Declaration by President Monroe of the principle of Ameri- 
can policy known since as the " Monroe Doctrine." 

1824. Tariff Act, increasing protective duties. 

Administration of President John Quincy Adams. 
1828. The " Tariff of Abominations." 

Administration of President Jackson. 

1830. Diplomatic arrangement with Great Britain, to reopen her 
West Indian trade to American shipping. 

1832. Act to renew the charter of the United States Bank, vetoed 
by the President. — Tariff Act, more strictly protective than that- 
of 1828. — President Jackson's proclamation against the nullifying 
ordinance of South Carolina. 

1833. " Force Bill." — " Compromise Tariff '' Act. — Removal of 
government deposits from the United States Bank. — Censure of 
the President by Senate resolution. 

1834. Creation of Indian Territory. 

1835. Settlement of claims against France. 

1836. Resolution of the House of Representatives directing all 

43 



APPENDIX D. 

petitions concerning slavery to be laid on the table, without action. 
— Act directing a distribution of surplus revenue among the 
States. — The President's "Specie Circular." 

1837. Resolution to expunge the censure of President Jackson, 
passed in 1833, from the journal of the Senate. — Recognition of 
the Republic of Texas. 

Administration of President Van Buren. 

1840. Act to establish the Independent Treasury System. — 
Resolution of the House of Representatives refusing to receive 
petitions against slavery. 

Administration of President Tyler. 

1841. Repeal of the Independent Treasury Act. — Act to dis- 
tribute proceeds of the sale of public lands among the States. 

1842. Revision of the Compromise Tariff, annulling the Act to 
distribute land revenues. — Negotiation of the Ashburton Treaty. 

1844. Texas annexation treaty rejected by the Senate. 

1845. Annexation of Texas. — Admission of Florida and Iowa 
to the Union. — Rescinding of the rule of the House of Repre- 
sentatives against receiving anti-slaven,- petitions. 

Administration of President Polk. 

1846. Oregon Boundary Treaty with Great Britain. — Declara- 
tion of war with Mexico. — Walker Tariff Act. — Act to reestab- 
lish the Independent Treasurv. 

1848. Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo with Mexico. — Territorial 
organization of Oregon with slaver\' excluded. 

Administration of President Fillmore. 

1850. The live measures of Compromise, admitting California to 
the Union, establishing territorial governments in New Mexico 
and Utah, purchasing the Texas claim on New Mexico, prohibit- 
ing the slave trade in the District of Columbia, and enacting a new 
Fugitive Slave Law. — Negotiation of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty 
with Great Britain. 

Administration of President Pierce. 
1854. Kansas-Nebraska Act, organizing the Territories of Kan- 

44 



IMPORTANT MEASURES OF THE GOVERNMENT. 

sas and Nebraska, and repealing the Missouri Compromise. — 
Treaty of Reciprocity with Canada. 

Administration of President Buchanan. 

1857. The Dred Scott decision by the Supreme Court. 

1858. Act submitting the Lecompton Constitution to a vote of 
the people of Kansas. — Admission of Minnesota to the Union. 

1859. Admission of Oregon to the Union. 

1861. Admission of Kansas to the Union. — Morrill Tariff Act. 

— Territorial organization of Colorado, Nevada, and Dakota. 

Administration of President Lincoln. 

1861. Call (April 15) for 75,000 militia to suppress combinations 
against the laws. — Call (May 3) for 42,000 volunteers and 18,000 
seamen. — Proclamation (April 19) of a blockade of southern ports. 

— Executive approval of the dictum that slaves are " contraband 
of war." — Congressional ratification of war measures of the Presi- 
dent. — Authority given to raise 500,000 volunteers and make a 
loan of $250,000,000. — Act to increase tariff rates and impose an 
income tax. — Act to confiscate property used for insurrectionary 
purposes, including slaves. 

1862. First Legal Tender Act, authorizing an issue of $100,000,- 
000 of legal tender treasury notes. — Revision of the tariff, in- 
creasing rates of duty. — Internal Revenue Act. — Resolution of 
Congress proffering aid to undertakings of compensated emanci- 
pation in slave States. — Act forbidding military officers to surren- 
der fugitive slaves. — Compensated abolition of slavery in the 
District of Columbia. — Act to confiscate the property (including 
slaves) of all persons in arms against the government. — Execu- 
tive consent to the organizing and arming of refugee negroes for 
military service. — President Lincoln's first (warning) Proclamation 
of Emancipation. — Admission of West Virginia to the Union. 

1863. The President's final Proclamation of Emancipation. — 
Conscription Act. — National Banking Act. — President Lincoln's 
Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction. 

1864. Reconstruction of state governments in Louisiana and 
Arkansas. — Abolition of slavery by state action in Maryland. 

1865. Adoption by Congress of the Thirteenth Amendment to 
the Constitution. — Act to establish the Freedmen's Bureau. — 
Abolition of slavery by state action in Missouri, Tennessee, Ar- 

45 



APPENDIX D. 

kansas, and Louisiana. — Executive order to stop drafting, recruit- 
ing, and the purchase of military- supplies. 

Administration of President Johnson. 

1865. President Johnson's Proclamation of Amnesty. — Recon- 
struction of state governments in Virginia, North Carolina, South 
Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi. — Proclama- 
tion of the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Con- 
stitution by three fourths of the States. 

1866. Ci\nl Rights Act. — Joint resolution proposing the Four- 
teenth Amendment to the Constitution. — Tennessee readmitted 
to representation in Congress. 

1867. Tenure of Office Act. — Act to establish universal man- 
hood suffrage in the District of Columbia and the Territories. — 
Admission of Nebraska to the Union. — Militar}- Reconstruction 
Act. — Supplementary Reconstruction Act. — Diplomatic expostu- 
lations causing the withdrawal of the French from Mexico. — Pur- 
chase of Alaska from Russia. 

1868. Impeachment and trial of the President. — North Carolina. 
South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, .Alabama, Louisiana, and Ar- 
kansas, reconstructed under the Militan.- Reconstruction .A.ct, 
admitted to representation in Congress. — Ratification of the Four- 
teenth .Amendment proclaimed. 

1869. Joint resolution proposing the Fifteenth .A.mendment to 
the Constitution. 

Administration of President Grant. 

1S69. Treaty for the annexation of San Domingo rejected by the 
Senate. 

1870. Ratincation of the Fifteenth Amendment proclaimed. — 
Force Bill passed. 

1870. Second Force Bill j>assed. — Treaty of Washington. — 
First Civil Sers-ice Reform enactment. 

187a. .\mnesty .Act, restoring franchises to large classes in lately 
rebellious States. — Settlement of Alabama CLvims by arbitration 
at Geneva. 

1873. Coinage Act. 

1875. -\ct to provide for a resumption of specie payments. Janu- 
ar>- I. iSra 

1877. Act to create an Electoral Commission. 

4(^ 



IMPORTANT MEASURES OF THE GOVERNMENT. 

Administration of President Hayes. 

1877. Executive withdrawal of Federal forces from the south. 

1878. Bland Silver Act. 

1879. Resumption of specie payments. 

Administration of President Arthur. 

1883. Pendleton Civil Service Act. — Notice to annul the fishery 
articles of the Treaty of Washington. 

First Administration of President Cleveland. 

1886. Act to prevent a vacancy in the presidential oliice. 

1887. Act to regulate the counting of electoral votes. — Act to 
create an Inter-State Commerce Commission. — Repeal of the 
Tenure of Otftce Act. 

1888. Fisheries Treaty with Great Britain rejected by the Senate. 

Administration of President Benjamin Harrison. 

1889. Admission to the Union of Washington, Montana, North 
Dakota, and South Dakota. — Opening of Oklahoma to white 
settlers. 

1890. The McKinley Tariff Act. — The Sherman Silver Act. — 
Admission to the Union of Idaho and Wyoming. 

1892, Agreement with Great Britain for the arbitration of the 
Bering Sea dispute. 

1893. Treaty of annexation with the revolutionary government of 
the Hawaiian Islands. 

Second Administration of President Cleveland. 

1893. Hawaiian annexation treaty withdrawn from the Senate by 
the President. — Act stopping the purchase of silver by the govern- 
ment under the Sherman Act. 

1894. The Wilson Tariff Act and Income Tax Act. 

1895. Supreme Court decision against the constitutionality of 
the income tax. 

1897. Arbitration Treaty with Great Britain rejected by the 
Senate. 



47 



APPENDIX D. 

Administration of President McKinley. 

1897. The Dingley Tariff Act. 

1898. Declaration of War with Spain. — Treaty of peace with 
Spain, acquiring Porto Rico, Guam, and the Philippine Islands, 
and releasing Cuba from Spanish rule. 

1900. Act establishing the standard "dollar,'" denned in gold. — 
Establishment of a Civil Commission in the Philippine Islands, 
with legislative powers, to cooperate with the military authority. — 
Erection of civil government in Porto Rico. — Diplomatic negoti- 
ation of the pleelge of the ** open door " to trade in China. 

1900. Erection of civil government in the Philippine Islands. — 
Cooperation with other Powers in the suppression of the *' Boxer '' 
outbreak in China. 

Administration of President Roosevelt. 

1900. Negotiation and ratification of the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty 
with Great Britain, relative to an interoceanic canal. 

1902. Withdrawal of militan.- forces from Cuba and recognition 
of Cuban independence. — Isthmian Canal Act. 

1903. Isthmian Canal convention with Colombia, rejected by the 
Colombian Senate. 



i 
48 



INDEX. 



INDEX. 



Abercrombie, Gen. James. 14S. 

Abolitionism. See Slavery. 

Acadia, Map V. Eb; grant to Sieur de 
Monts, 25 ; ceded by France to England, 
and named Nova Scotia, 126; dispersion 
of Acadian French, 146-147. 

*' Acts of Trade," English, 111-113; '^S. 

Adams, John, on James Otis, 161; leader- 
ship in Boston, 173 ; in the First Con- 
tinental Congress, 176; his political 
writings, 190 ; in Second Continental 
Congress, 19S ; in peace negotiation, 234 ; 
Vice-President of the United States, 266, 
281; President, 201-296 ; defeat by Jef- 
ferson, 296; death, 383. 

Adams, John Qiiincy, minister to Russia 
and commissioner to Ghent, 351 ; Secre- 
tary of State and author of '' Monroe 
Doctrine," 377 : elected President, 370- 
380 ; combination against his admin- 
istration, 38 1-3 82 ; defeated by Jackson, 
385-386 ; high-minded treatment of offi- 
cials who opposed him, 395; defence in 
Congress of the right of petition, 409- 
410 ; attempt to censure, 424; victory for 
the right of petition, 435. 

Adains, Samuel, his popular leadership in 
Massachusetts, 16S-169; threatened with 
arrest and trial in England for treason, 
169, 175, 194: demands the removal of 
the British regiments from Boston, 171 ; 
institutes committees of correspondence, 
173; in the First Continental Congress, 
176; his political writings, 190; in Second 
Continental Congress, 198 ; opposition to 
a strong federal government, 255 ; opposi- 
tion to the Federal Constitution, 263. 

Agricultural development, 612-613. 

Aguinaldo, 598, 599. 

Aix-la-Chapelle, treaty of, 139. 

Alabama, admission to the Union, 371 ; 
secession declared, 4S6 ; emancipation 
proclaimed, 528; restored to the Union, 

564-565- 
Alabama, the Confederate cruiser, 529, 

542- 

Alabama claims, 529, 569-570. 

Alamance, the, battle, 171 ; Map I'll. Cc. 

Alamo, the, 411 ; Map XI. Dc. 

Alaska, 567, 596; Map XW 

Albany, ^Tap I 'I. Dc : Dutch Fort Orange 
built, 48 ; renamed by the English, 87 ; 
Colonial Congress, 1754, 143-144; open- 
ing of the Hudson River Railway, 610. 



Albany Regency, the, 394. 

Albemarle, the ram, destruction by Lieu- 
tenant Cushing, 557. 

Albemarle Sound. 'Slap VII. Dc. 

Alexander VI., Pope, bulls of, 5. 

Alexandria, Va., 498 ; Map XII. De. 

Algerine wars (with map), 310-311, 318, 
353- 

Algonquian tribes, 20, 26 ; Map II. Fb, and 
p. 26. 

Alien and sedition acts, 293-294. 

Allen, Ethan, 19S, 279. 

Altamaha River, Map J'll. Bf. 

Ambrister, Jackson's execution of, 369. 

America. Map II.: discoverj'by Northmen, 
I ; by Columbus, 3-6 ; name given to abo- 
rigines, 5 ; papal grants to Spain and Por- 
tugal, 5 ; Cabot's voyage and English 
claim founded on it, 7-S ; named in honor 
of Americus Vespucius, 8 ; early Spanish 
exploratiiius and conquests, 9-11; early 
French explorations, 10; effect of discov- 
ery on Europe, 12; state of native inhab- 
itants when first known, 16-19; linguistic 
classification of aboriginal tribes, 22 ; 
physical features, 22-24. 

American (" Know Nothing") party, 462- 
463, 464, 465. 

" American system," Clay's, 375-376, 401. 

Amherst, Gen. Jeffrey, 149. 

Amnesty, President Lincoln's proclama- 
tion, 536-539 ; President Johnson's pro- 
clamation, 561; amnesty of 1868, 550; 
general amnesty act, 1872, 568. 

Anarchists, Chicago, 587. 

Anderson, Major Robert, defence of Fort 
Sumter, 487, 4S8, 490-491 ; raising the 
restored flag (1S65), 54S. 

Andre, Major John, 229-230. 

Andros, Sir Edmund, governor of New 
York, 94-96 ; captain-general and gov- 
ernor of New England, 101-102 ; his rule 
extended, 102 ; expulsion from Massa- 

• chusetts, 119. 

Annapolis, Md.. 237-23S, 256-257; Map 
XII . Ed, and p. 493. 

Annapolis, N. S., 25; Map I'. Dc. 

Anne, Queen, 124. 

Antietam, battle of, 52S ; Map XII . Cc. 

Anti-Federalist party, its formation and 
aims, — Jefferson's leadership, 28i-2l?4. 

Anti-imperialists, 601. 

Anti-^L^sonic party, 385-386, 400, 402, 414. 

Antinomian controversy, 44-45. 



51 



INDEX. 



Anti-rent disturbances, 430-431. 

Anti-slavery movements.- See Slavery. 
Apaches, war with the, 570: M.tp XI. Eb. 
Appalachian Mountain system, 22-J4, 134, 

135-136; Mitp I. 
Appomattox Court House, 547 ; J/^i/ XII. 

Ah. 
Aquidneck, the first name of Rhode Island, 

■♦5- 

Arbitration, of Alabama clamis, 569-570; 
of Bering Sea controversy, 5S4-5S 5; of 
Venezuela question, 503-5^4; rejection 
of arbitration treaty with Great Britain, 
594; arbitration of labor disputes, 61S- 
619. 

Arbuthnot, Jackson's execution of, 369. 

Aristocratic tendencies, in colonial Vir- 
ginia and Maryland, 73-74 ; in New 
Netherland, 75 ; in later colonial times, 
1SS-1S9; in the Federalist pany, 2S2. 

"Aristocrats," the New York faction of, 
121. 

Arizona, acquisition by the United States, 
442. 

Arkansas, admitted to the Union, Appendix 
B ; secession declared, 4Q4 ; emancipation 
proclaimed, 52S; slavery abolished by 
state action, 545 U^>ot-note) : restored to 
the Union, 564-565. 

Arkansas River, 369 ; Map XI. Db. 

Arlington, Earl of, 90. 

Armies, Union and Confederate, statistics, 

Armstrong. Gen. John, 236-237, 349. 

Armstrong, Gen. Samuel C, 621. 

Army of the Cumberland, 536. 

Army of the Potomac, formed under Mc- 
Dowell,— first battle of Bull Run, — Mc- 
Clellan called to command, 300-501 ; 
strength and condition in October, 1S61, 
— inaction through fall and winter, 503- 
504, 507 ; advance to Manassas, 508 ; 
peninsular campaign, 511-512, 513-514 ; 
recall to the Potomac, 514 ; cooperation 
with Pope, and campaign against Lee in 
Mar^'laud, 527-52S; reverse under Burn- 
side, 530, and again under Hooker, 531 ; 
Gettysburg camjiaign, 532-533 : in Virginia 
again, 535 ; movement on Richmond 
under Grant, 539, 540 : before Petersburg. 
541 ; in pursuit of Lee. — and of war, 54t>- 
547; grand review at Washington, 551. 

Army of the Tennessee, 536, 541. 

Arnold, Benedict, at the capture of Ticon- 
deroga, 19S ; defence of L.^ke Champlain, 
209; in campaign against Burgoyne, 215 ; 
attempted treason, 229-230. 

Arthur, Chester A., 5S2. 

Articles of Confederation, 248-249,250-252. 

Ashburton treaty, 431. 

Asia, early trade of Europe with, 2-3, 7. 

Assassinations: of President Lincoln, 54S- 
550; of President Garfield, 5S1-5S2 ; of 
President McKinley, 601-602. 

Assemblies, colonial, established in Mary- 
land, 34 ; in Virginia. 62 ; in Plymouth 
Colony, 6s; in NIassachusetts Bay Col- 
ony, 66 ; In Connecticut, 66-67 1 English 



origin in all the colonies, 69-70 ; in New 
Jersey, 87 ; in New York, 96 ; in Penn- 
sylvania, 97-99; in Georgia, 134. 

Assiento, the, 102. 

Assumption Bill, 274-275. 

Assunpink Creek, Map, p. 211, Eg. 

Astoria, 370 ; Map XI. Aa. 

" Atherton gag," the. 409. 

Atlanta. Map XIII. Ff ; siege, 541 ; capture 
and destruction, 54^-543. 

Bacon, Nathaniel, rebellion of, 90-92. 

Bahamas, 4, 504; Map II. Hd. 

Balboa. Vasco Nunez de, discover^' of the 
Pacific Ocean by, 9. 

Baltimore, Barons of. See Calvert. 

Baltimore, city, Map VII. Db ; British at- 
tack, 1S14 (with map), 34Q-350; seces- 
sionist attack on the 6th Massachusetts 
Regiment, 1S61 (with map), 492-493. 

Bancroft, George. 435. 

Bank of the United States. See United 
States Bank. 

Bank questions, etc. See Monetar}- ques- 
tions. 

Banks. Nathaniel P., elected Speaker of 
the House of Representatives, 464 ; in 
military command. ^33, 539. 

Barbary States, mediaeval piracy of, 3 ; 
wars with (with map), 310-311, 31S, 353. 

Bargain and corruption crv, 1S24-2;, 3S0- 
3S1. 

'' Barnburner" Democrats, 450-451. 

Barre, Colonel Isaac, 164, 165, 178. 

Bates, Edward, 400. 

Baton Rouge, American seizure of Spanish 
fort, 3^^: Map XI. Db. 

Bay of Fundy, Map J'. Fb. 

Beauregard, Gen. Pierre G T., bombard- 
ment and capture of Fort Sumter, 491 ; in 
command at first Bull Run. 501 : in 
battle of Shiloh, 506 : in the defence of 
Richmond, 540. 

Beecher, Henr\- Ward, 54S. 

Bell, John. 475. 

Bellingham, Richard, 89. 

Bellomont. Lord, 120. 

Bemis Heights, battles, 215 ; Map, p. 213. 

Bennington, battle of, 214 : Map, p. 213. 

Benton, Thomas H., opinion of the Texas 
annexation treaty, 43S. 

Bering Sea controversy and arbitration, 

.-^4-555- 

Berkeley, Lord, S7, 95-96. 

Berkeley, Sir William, governor of Vir- 
ginia. 53-54. So-Si, S9-92. 

Berlin decree, the, 321-322, 334. 

Bermuda Hundred, 540; Miip, XII. Dh. 

Bessemer process, 614. 

Beverley, Robert, 191. 

Bienville, Celoron de, 140. 

Big Bethel, battle of, 49S ; Map, XII. Ei. 

Billeting Act. the, 167. 

Birney, James G., 434. 

B'ack, Jeremiah S., 4S7. 

Black Hawk War, 397. 

Bladensburg, battle, 34S; Ma/, p. 349. 

Blaine, James G.. 581, 5S3. 



5^ 



INDEX. 



Blair, Francis P., 400. 

Blair, Francis P., Jr., 495-496. 

Blair, Montgomery, 490, 527. 

Bland Silver Act, 576-577, 589. 

Blennerhasset, Harman, 318. 

Blockade of Confederate ports, 493, 504- 
506, Map, p. 505. 

Blue Light Federalists, 350. 

Blue Ridge, 532 ; Map XII. Be. 

Board of Trade, British, 128, 131, 132, 143- 
144, 162, 163. 

Bonaparte. See Napeleon Bonaparte. 

Bon Homme Richard, the, 226-227. 

Boone, Daniel, 223. 

Booth, John Wilkes, 549-550. 

*' Border Ruffians," 463-464. 

Boston, Map J'. Hd ; founded, 39-40; the 
mobbing of Governor Hutchinson, 165- 
166; British regiments ordered to the 
city, 169 ; the " massacre " of citizens, 
171 ; the " tea-party," 173-174 ; punish- 
ment by the Port Bill, 174-175 ; the Brit- 
ish besieged in the city, 196; battle of 
Bunker Hill, 200-202 ; evacuation by the 
British, 204-205 ; great fire, 572 ; found- 
ing of the first municipal free library, 621. 

Boston Public Latin School, 41. 

Botetoiirt, Lord, 169-170. 

" Boxer" rising in China, 6oo-6or. 

Braddock's defeat, 144-146. 

Bradford, William, governor of Plymouth 
colony, 64, 115. 

Bradford, William (early printer), 116, 137. 

Bradstreet, Anne, 115. 

Bragg, General Braxton, 528-529, 531, 535, 

536. 539- 

Brandywine Creek, battle of, 216; Jlfap, 
p. 211 Ai. 

Brant, Joseph, 222. 

Breed's Hill, 200. 

Brooke, Lord, 42. 

Brooklyn, battle of Long Island, 208 ; Jlfap, 
p. 209. 

Brooks, Preston, 465. 

Brown, Gen. Jacob, 346, 347. 

Brown, John, in Kansas, 464 ; attempt at 
Harper's Ferry, 473-474. 

Brunswick, the House of, 130. 

Bryan, William J., 594, 601. 

Bryant, William Cullen, 365, 41^0, 622. 

Buchanan, James, Secretary of State, 435 ; 
candidate for presidential nomination, 
459' signer of the " Ostend Manifesto," 
460; elected President, 465-466; action 
sustaining the Lecompton fraud in Kan- 
sas, 468-470; message to Congress on the 
Secession movement, 484-485. 

" Bucktails," 386. 

Biiell, Gen. Don Carlos, commanding De- 
partment of the Ohio, 503 ; advance to 
Nashville, — battle of Shiloh, 506; de- 
feat of Bragg, 528-529 ; succeeded by 
Rosecrans, 530. 

Buena Vista, battle of (with map), 440-441. 

Buffalo, Jffnp XI. Fa ; .burned by British 
and Indians, 346,347; first steamboat, 
364; "Free Soil'' convention, 1848, 
451; Fenian invasion of Canada, 566- 



567 ; Grover Cleveland, mayor, 583 ; Pan- 
American Exposition, — murder of Pres- 
ident McKinlev, 601-602. 

Bull Run, Map XII. Ce ; first battle, 
50T ; second battle, 527. 

Bulwer, Sir Henry Lytton, 457. 

Bunker Hill, battle of (with plan), 200- 
202. 

Burgesses, Virginia House of, 63, 72. 

Burgoyne, Gen. John, his invasion and 
surrender (with map), 212-215. 

Burke, Edmund, opposition to British 
measures against the colonies, 169, 174, 
178, 190. 

Burnet, Gov. William, 135. 

Burnside, Gen. Ambrose E., in com- 
mand of the Army of the Potomac, 530 ; 
succeeded by General Hooker, 531 ; 
campaign in East Tennessee, 535, 536 ; 
rejoins the Army of the Potomac under 
Grant, 539. 

Burr, Aaron, Vice-President, 296 ; in- 
trigues, — duel with Hamilton, 315- 
316; conspiracy in the southwest, 316-318. 

Butler, Benjamin F., in command at For- 
tress Monroe, — declares slaves contra- 
band of war, 498-499 ; at New Orleans, 
512; again at Fortress Monroe, — 
movement up the James, 539, 540. 

Butler, John and Walter, 222. 

Byrd, William, 191. 

Cabinet, the President's, 297. 

Cabot, John, voyages to America, 7-8. 

Caddoan tribes, 21 ; Map II. Fc. 

Calhoun, John C, entrance into Congress, 
339 ; advocates protective tariff, and in- 
ternal improvements (1816), 355 ; changed 
opinions, 384; elected Vice-President, 
3^(5 ; chief agitator of the slavery ques- 
tion, 408-409 ; Secretary of State under 
President Tyler, — negotiation of Texas 
annexation treaty, 432 ; new theory of 
slaveholding rights in the Territories, 
445-446 ; contempt for doctrine of " squat- 
ter sovereignty,' 461. 

California, acquisition by the United States, 
439-440,442; gold discovery, 443; mapped 
in 1849, Map X. ; the question of exclud- 
ing slavery, — the " Wilmot proviso," 
444-445; ft ee-state constitution adopted, 
451 ; admitted to the Union, 454 ; devel- 
opment, 61 1-612. 

Calvert, Benedict, Lord Baltimore, proprie- 
tary government in Maryland restored to, 
123. 

Calvert, Cecilius, Baron of Baltimore, 
founder of Maryland, 33 ; troubles with 
Puritans, 54. 

Calvert, Charles, Lord Baltimore, deprived 
of the government of Maryland, 123. 

Calvert, Leonard, 33-34- 

Cambridge, Mass. (first named Newtown), 
Ma/>, p. 195 ; migration from, to Con- 
necticut, 41-42, 66; Washington's head- 
quarters, 202. 

Camden, battle, 228 ; Afap, p. 225, Bf. 

Camden, Earl, 166, 178. 



53 



INDEX. 



Cameron, Simon, 490, 526. 

Canada, aboriginal inhabitants, 20 ; French 
settlements, 25-28 ; state and character of 
early colonies, 116-117; French western 
exploration, 117-118; strife of England 
and France, 123-126, 138-139,140-150; 
cession to England, 150; English organ- 
ization of government, 163 ; the Quebec 
Act, 175 ; address to the people by the 
Continental Congress, 177 ; in the war i 
of American independence, 202-203, 209, I 
212-215: in the War of 1S12, 339-348; I 
rebellion (1837-183S), 418-419, 431 ; reci- j 
procity treaty with the United States, 
460; Fenian invasion, 566-567; contro- | 
versies with the United States, — joint . 
high commission, 596. 

Canby, Gen. Edward R. S., 503. j 

Cannmg, George, 377. 

Cape Breton Island, Map V. Gb, and [ 
p. 138. 

Cape Fear River, Map VII. Cd. | 

Capitalists, combinations among, 617-619. 

Caribbean Sea, 9 ; Map II. He. 

Carillon, Fort, 146. 

Carleton, Sir Guy, 209. 

Carnegie, Andrew, 622. 

Carolina colonies, founded as a palatinate 
(with map), 84-S5 ; Locke's constitution, 
85. See North Carolina and South Car- 
olina. 

Caroline, burning of the, 418-419- 

" Carpet-baggers," 565. 

Carrick's Ford, battle of, 500 ; Map, p. 499, 
Ea. 

Carteret, Sir George, 87, 95-96. 

Cartier, Jacques, discovery of the St. Law- 
rence, 10; Map II. Hb. 

Carver, John, 64. 

Casa ^Iata, battle of (with map), 441. 

Casco, 125 ; Map F. Bd. 

Cass, Lewis, 399. 451-452, 453- 459. 4^.7- 

Catholic Church. See Roman Catholic- 
Cavaliers, in the English civil war, 49 ; im- 
migration to Virginia, 73 ; restored to 
power in England, So. 

Cayugas, Map VI. Be. See Iroquois. 

Cedar Creek, battle of, 542 ; Map XII. Bd. 

Census, the first, 276. See Population. 

Centennial E.xposition, 573. 

Central America, discovery by Colum- 
bus, 6. 

Centreville, 508 ; Map XII. De. 

Cerro Gordo, battle of (with map), 441. 

Cervera's fleet, destruction of, 598. 

Cessions of western territory by the States, 
249-250; ^lap I'll I, 

Chaffee, Gen. Adna R., 601. 

Champlain, Samuel de, in New France, 26- 
27; attack on the Iroquois, 26-27. 

Chanceilorsville, battle of, 53 1 ; Map XII. 

a. 

Channing, William Ellery, 366. 

Chapultepec, battle of (with map), 441. 

Charles I., grant to Lord Baltimore, 33 ; 
oppressive rule in England, 38, 63; defeat 
in civil war and execution, 49-50. 

Charles II., the colonies under, 80-102; 



bad government in England, 80-81, 94, 
100; death, 101. 

Charles V., Emperor, 12-13. 

Charleston, S. C, Map VII. Ce, and p. 225, 
Bh ; founded, 84: treatment of tea-ships, 
174; character and importance in late 
colonial times, 188 ; British repulse, 207- 
208 ; surrender to the British, 225-226 ; 
nullifying movement (1832), 402-403 ; 
Democratic national convention (1860), 
475 ; Fort Sumter held by Major Ander- 
son, 487, 488 ; Confederate siege and cap- 
ture of Fort Sumter, 490-491 ; Union op- 
erations against the city (1863), 534-535; 
evacuated by the Confederates, 544 ; re- 
storation of the flag to Fort Sumter, 548. 

Charlestown, Mass., Map V. Bd, and p. 
195; first settlement, 39-40; battle of 
Bunker Hill (with map), 201. 

" Charter Oak,'" 102. 

Chase, Salmon P., Secretary of the Trea- 
sury under President Lincoln, 490 ; resig- 
nation, — appointed chief justice, 544. 

Chatham, Earl of. See Pitt, William, the 
elder. 

Chattanooga, 529, 531, 535, 536, 610; Map 
XIII. Ee. 

Chauncey, Commodore Isaac, 343. 

Cherokee Indians, treatment by Georgia, 
383-384, 396; Map XI. Eb. 

Cherry Valley, massacre, 222 ; Map VI. Do. 

Cherubusco, battle of (with map), 441. 

Chesapeake, the frigate, attacked by the 
Leopard, 322-323 ; capture by the Shan- 
non, 343-344- 

Chester, Pa., Peun's first seat of govern- 
ment, 98, 99 ; yiap VI. Ce. 

Chicago, Map XI. Ea; great fire, 572; 
execution of anarchists, 587 ; Columbian 
Exposition, 591 ; first connection by rail 
with the seaboard, 610. 

Chicheley, Col., 92. 

Chickahominy River, military operations on 
the, 511-512, 513-514, 540; Map XII. Dh. 

Chickamauga, battle of. 535 ; Map XIII. Ef. 

Chignecto Bay, Map V. Eb. 

Chihuahua, 11, 438; Map II. Ed. 

Chile, difficulty with, 605. 

China, pledge of the " open door " in trade, 

— the " Boxer ' rising, 600-601. 
Chowan River, Map VII. Dc. 
Chr\'stler's Farm, battle of, 346 ; Map IX. 

E'c. 

Church, Benjamin, 191. 

Cincinnati, founded, 265 ; Map IX. Cd. 

Cincinnati, Order of the, 237. 

Circular Letter of Massachusetts, i68-i6g. 

Civic Federation, 618-619. 

Civil Rights Act, 562-563. 

Civil service reform, beginnings, 571-572; 
quickened by the murder of President 
Garfield, — formation of national league, 

— passage of Pendleton act, 582. 
Clark, Gen. George Rogers, conquest of the 

northwest, 223-224, 24q. 
Class differences in colonial times, 18S- 

189. 
Clay, Henry, beginning of political career, 



54 



INDEX. 



— early leadership in Congress, — urgency 
for war with England, 338-339; peace 
commissioner at Ghent, 351 ; advocates 
protective tariff (1816), 355 ; brings about 
the Missouri Compromise, 374 ; champion 
of American system, 375-376 ; candidate 
for presidency (1824), 379-380 ; Secretary 
of State, 380-381 ; defeated in presidential 
election (1832) on the U. S. Bank ques- 
tion, 400-402 ; leads Whig rupture with 
President Tyler, 428-430 ; opposes the 
annexation of Texas, 432-433 ; nominated 
for the presidency (1844), — defeated, 433- 
434 ; brings about the compromise of 
1850, 453 ; death, 459. 

Clayton-Bulwer treaty, 457, 602. 

Cleveland, city of, 610; ISIap XI. Ea. 

Cleveland, Grover, elected President, 583 ; 
his administration, 5S4-587 ; tariff mes- 
sage, 1887, 586 i renominated, but not re- 
elected, 587-588 ; second election to the 
presidency, 590 ; action on Hawaiian 
treaty, 590-591 ; action on Wilson Tariff 
Act, 593 ; action on Venezuela question 
with Great Britain, 593-594. 

Clinton, De Witt, candidate for presidency, 
343 ; builder of the Erie Canal, 364 ; the 
" Clintonians," 386. 

Clinton, George, 316. 

Clinton, Sir Henry, 205, 207-208, 220-221, 
224-226, 229, 232. 

Cobb, Howell, 487. 

Coinage, the decimal system of, 254-255. 

Coinage, silver. See Silver question. 

Cold Harbor, battle of, 540 ; Map XII. Dh. 

Colden, Cadwalader, 166, 191. 

Colombia, rejection of canal treaty, 603. 

Colonies, state of the: early, 62-76; at 
the end of the 17th century, 108-118; at 
the beginning of the War of Independ- 
ence, 186-193. 

Colorado, acquisition of western part from 
Mexico, 442 ; eastern part included in 
Nebraska Territory, 461 ; territorial or- 
ganization, 488. 

Columbia, District of. See District of Co- 
lumbia. 

Columbia River, 436; JSIap XI. Aa. 

Columbian exposition, 591. 

Columbus, Christopher, merit and deserved 
fame, 1-2 ; four voyages to America, 3- 
6 ; death, 7. 

Comanches, 2 1 ; Rlap II. Dc. 

Combinations of workmen and capitalists, 
617-619. 

Committee of Safety, Massachusetts, 179. 

Committees of correspondence, 173. 

" Common Sense," Paine's pamphlet, 204. 

Compromises, in the framing of the Con- 
stitution, 260-262; the Missouri Com- 
promise (1820), 372-374 ; the Compromise 
Tariff (1833), 402-404 ; the compromise 
of 1850, 452-454 ; proposed Crittenden 
compromise (i860), 485. 

Concord, fight at (with map), 194-195. 

Confederate States of America, organiza- 
tion of government, 489 ; war measures, 
— privateers and cruisers, 493-494; 



population and resources, — disadvan- 
tages and advantages in the Civil War, 
496-497 ; effects of blockade, 504 ; map 
of blockaded coast, 505; constitution, 
489, 516. 

Confederation, Articles of, 248-249, 250- 
252. 

Confederation of New England colonies, 
46. 

Confiscation acts, 500, 525. 

Congress, Continental. See Continental 
Congress. 

Congress, the frigate, 508-509. 

Conkling, Roscoe, 581. 

Connecticut, founding of the colony (with 
map), 41-42; Pequot War, 42; New 
Haven settlement, 43 ; population in 
1640, 46; Dutch attempt to occupy, 48; 
" Fundamental Orders" of government, 
the first of written constitutions, 66-67 
(foot-note), .69; "Fundamental Agree- 
ment " of New Haven, 67 ; local govern- 
ment, — town-meetings, 70-72; royal 
charter obtained, — New Haven ab- 
sorbed, 82-83 ; disputed western bound- 
ary, 95; under Andros, — the hidden 
charter, 102; population, industries, and 
trade at end oi 17th century, 108-113; 
slavery and indentured servitude, 113- 
114; education and literature, 114-116; 
state government formed, 207 ; cession 
of land claims to the Confederation, 
249-250. 

Conscription, in the south, 511; in the 
north, 531-534. 

Constitution, the English, its difference 
from written constitutions, 76. 

Constitution for the Carolinas, John 
Locke's, 85. 

Constitution of the Confederate States, 
489, 516. 

Constitution of the United States, Articles 
of Confederation, 248-249, 250-252 ; the 
framing and adoption of the Constitution 
of 1787, 256-264; first ten amendments, 
273; doctrine of "implied powers," — 
the "elastic clause," 277-278, 280; 
"strict construction" and "free con- 
struction," 278, 2S0, 314, 354, 381-382; 
Jefferson's views, 309-310, 319-320 ; the 
Louisiana question, 313-314; early de- 
cisions by the Supreme Court, 296, 368 ; 
Dred Scott decision against the constitu- 
tionality of the Missouri Compromise, 
466-467 ; Thirteenth Amendment, 545 ; 
Fourteenth Amendment, 563, 564 (foot- 
note) ; Fifteenth Amendment, 565. See 
also Supreme Court. (Text in Appen- 
dix A.) 

Constitution, the frigate, built, 293 ; bat- 
tles with the Guerriere and the Java, 
342. 

Constitutional Union party, 475, 

Constitutions, the first written, 62-63 
(foot-note), 64, 66-67 (foot-note). 

Continental army, formation, 198; dissolu- 
tion, 236-237. 

Continental Congress, the First, 175-179; 



55 



INDEX. 



the Second, called, 178; meeting and 
early action, 19S-200 ; adjournment to 
Baltimore, 210; lowered character, 217 : 
driven to Princeton, 237 ; in session at 
Annapolis, 238 ; weakness under the 
Articles of Confederation, 248-249, 250- 
252; adoption of the Ordinance of 
1787, 264-265; provision for elections 
under the new Federal Constitution, 265- 
266. 

Continental currency, 218, 228, 253-254. 

Continental system. Napoleon's, 322, 333. 

Contraband of war, slaves declared, 498- 
499. 

Contreras, battle of (with map), 441. 

Convention, Federal Constitutional, of 
1787, 256-262. 

Conway Cabal, 217. 

Cooper, James Fenimore, 365, 622. 

Cooper, Peter, 574. 

" Copperheads," 529-530. 

Cordilleran mountain system, 22 ; Map I . 

Corinth, Miss., 506, 529; Map XIII. Cf. 

Cornstalk, chief, 172. 

Cornwallis, Charles, marquis, campaign 
against Washington in New Jersey, 210- 
212; in the Carolinas, 226, 227-228, 231 ; 
in Virginia, — surrender at Yorktown, 

231-233- 

Coronado, Francisco de, expedition of, 11. 

Corporations, growth of, 617-618. 

Cortes, Hernando, conquest of Mexico 
by, 9. 

Cotton, John, 115. 

Cotton culture, Whitney's gin and its ef- 
fect, 30S-309 ; blockade in the Civil War, 
— cotton famine in Great Britain, 504- 
505- 

Cotton States, 309. 

Council for New England, 37, 40. 

County, the, English origin, 71 ; in colo- 
nial Virginia, 72. 

Coureurs de bois, 27, 117. 

Cowpens, battle of the, 231 ; Map, p. 22s, Ae. 

Cox, General Jacob D., 545. 

Crawford, William H., 379, 380, 394-395- 

Credit Mobilier, 571. 

Creek tribes, war, 346; subsequent treat- 
ment, 3S3-384, 396; Map XI . Eb. 

Crises, financial and commercial, of 1819, 
367-368; of 1S37, 411-414, 415-41S; of 
1857, 467-46S; of 1873, 571; of 1893, 
591-592. 

Critical period, the, 248. 

Crittenden Compromise, proposed, 485- 
4S6. 

Cromwell, Oliver, Lord Protector of Eng- 
land, 50; death, 54. 

Crown colonies. See Royal provinces. 

Crown Point, Map I'l. Db ; in the wars 
with the French, 135, 145, 146, 150; in 
the War of Independence, 197-198. 

Cuba, Map II. He ; discovery by Colum- 
bus, 4; American attempts to buy from 
Spain, — filibustering schemes, — Lopez 
expedition, 458; the " Ostend Mani- 
festo," 460; revolt, 1895-98, — subject of 
war between the United States and 



Spain, 596; Spanish sovereignty relin- 
quished, 599; independent republic es- 
tablished, 600. 

Culpeper, Lord Thomas, 90, 92. 

Cumberland, 364 ; Map XI. Fb. 

Cumberland Gap, 507 ; Map XIII. Fd. 

Cumberland River, Map XIII. Cd. 

Cumberland Road, 364. 

Cumberland, the frigate, 509. 

Curtis, Gen., 507. 

Curtis, George William, 582. 

Gushing, Lieut. William B., 557. 

Custer, Gen. George A., 570. 

Cutler, Rev. Manasseh, 264. 

Dakota Territory, 488. See North Dakota 
and South Dakota. 

Dakota tribes, 2 1 ; Map II. Fb. 

Dale, Commodore Richard, 311. 

Davenport, John, 43, S3. 

Davis, Admiral Charles Henry, 513. 

Davis, Jeflferson, new theory of slavehold- 
ing rights in the Territories, 445-446 ; 
leader of southern extremists, 451 ; op- 
poses the compromise of 1850, 453 ; ap- 
proves President Buchanan's message on 
the secession movement, i860, 484-485 ; 
elected President of the Confederate 
States, 489 ; commissioning privateers, 
493-494; peace conference with, 544; 
abandonment of Richmond, 546-547 ; cap- 
ture, 547 ; amnesty, 550. 

Deane, Silas, 212. 

Dearborn, Gen. Henry, 345. 

Debt, national, of the War of Independ- 
ence, 273-274 ; of the Civil War, 551. 

Debtors, former treatment of, 133, 254. 

Decatur, Stephen, 342, 353. 

Declaration of Independence, 206-207. 

Declaration of Rights by the First Conti- 
nental Congress, 177 ; by Virginia, 206. 

Deerfield, 125; Map I'. Ad. 

Delaware, granted by the Duke of York 
to William Penn, 98; separation from 
Pennsylvania, 100; population, etc., at 
end of 17th centur}', 109-113; slavery, 
113-114 ; state government formed, 207. 

Delaware River, possession by the Dutch, 
47-48 ; Swedish settlements, 48 ; acquisi- 
tion by the English, 85-S7 ; Washington's 
crossing (with map), 211. 

Delawares, or Lenapes, 99. 

Democracy, American, its full beginnings 
in Connecticut, 67 (foot-note) : English 
origin of democratic institutions in the 
colonies, 69-70 ; democratic conditions in 
colonial New England, 74 ; class differ- 
ences in late colonial times, 1SS-189 ; 
democratic influences from the west, 363- 
364- 

Democratic party, formed from a wing of 
the Democratic-Republican party, in op- 
position to the administration of John 
Quincy Adams, 382-383 ; election of Gen- 
eral Jackson, 3S5-386 ; election of Van 
Buren, 414; defeat in 1840,419-420; elec- 
tion of Polk, 433-434 ; division in New 
York, — " Barnburners " and " Hunk- 



56 



INDEX. 



ers," — defeat in 1848, 450-451 ; election 
of Pierce, 458-459 ; weakened in the 
north by the Kansas-Nebraska act, 461 ; 
revolt led by Douglas against the Le- 
compton fraud in Kansas, 469-470 ; split 
in national convention at Charleston 
(i860), — opposing nominations of Doug- 
las and Breckenridge, 475 ; defeat, 476 ; 
support of the government at the begin- 
ning of the Civil War, 492, 500 ; later 
divisions, 529-530; in 1864, 544; in 1868, 
568; in 1872, 569; in 1876,574-575; in 
1880, 581 ; election of President Cleve- 
land, 583; defeat in 1S88, 587-588; sec- 
ond election of President Cleveland, 590; 
defeat in 1896, 594-595 ; defeat in 1900, 
601. 

Democratic-Republican party (called Re- 
publican). See Republican party, Demo- 
cratic. 

Deseret, the State of, 451. 

Detroit, I\Iap p. 141 Ec; Pontiac's siege, 
151 ; British use in War of Independence, 
223-224; Hull's surrender, 340-341 ; re- 
covery by Harrison, 345. 

Dewey, Admiral George, 597, 598. 

Diaz, Bartholomew, 7. 

Dickinson, John, his " Farmer's Letters," 
it)8 ; in the First Continental Congress, 
176; his writings, 190; in Second Con- 
tinental Congress, 198 ; in the Federal 
Constitutional Convention, 1787, 258. 

Dieskau, Baron Ludwig A., 145, 146. 

Dingley tariff, 595. 

Dinwiddle, Gov. Robert, 140. 

Discovery, scientific, 615. 

Disloyal secret societies, 553. 

District of Columbia, acquisition by the 
national government, 275 ; petitioning for 
emancipation in the Distritt suppressed, 
408-410; demand for abolition, 452; slave 
trade suppressed, 454; slavery abolished, 
511 ; universal manhood suffrage, 564. 

Dix, John A., 450, 487-488. 

Dollar, the standard, established and de- 
fined in gold, 596. 

Dominican Republic, rejected treaty for an- 
nexation of the, 569. 

Donaldson, Fort, capture of, 506 ; Map 
XIII. Dd. 

Dongan, Sir Thomas, 96. 

Doniphan, Col. Alexander W., 440. 

Dorchester, Mass., Map, p. 39 and p. 195 ; 
migration to Connecticut, 66 ; Washing- 
ton's seizure of the heights, 204. 

Dorr rebellion, 430. 

Douglas, Stephen A., advocates the com- 
promise of 1850, 453 ; candidate for presi- 
dential nomination, 459; author of the 
Kansas-Nebraska bill, repealing the Mis- 
souri Compromise, 460-461 ; doctrine of 
popular sovereignty, 461 ; revolt against 
the Lecompton fraud in Kansas, 469-470 ; 
debate with Abraham Lincoln, — reelec- 
tion to the Senate, 470-472 ; nomination 
for President by the northern wing of the 
Democratic party, 475 ; defeat, 476 ; loyal 
stand in 1861, — death, 492. 



Dover, N. H., 45; Map V. Be. 
Draft. See Conscription. 
Draft riot. New York, 533-534. 
Dred Scott decision, 466-467. 
Duane, William J., 404-405. 
Dudley, Thomas, 45 (foot-note). 
Dulaney, Daniel, 190. 
Dunmore, Lord, 172, 197; 203-204. 
Dupont, Admiral Samuel F., 534. 
Duquesne, Fort, 145, 148; Map VI. Ad. 
Dutch settlements. See Holland, and New 
York. , 

Early, Gen. Jubal A., 541-542. 

Eaton, John H., 394, 399. 

Economic conditions, at end of 17th cen- 
tury, 109-114; at beginning of War of In- 
dependence, 186-188 ; under the Articles 
of Confederation, 252-255 ; early in the 
19th century, 306-308, 319 ; after the War 
of 1812, 364-3657l;<7^^^^S7^09-6io; pre- 
ceding and following the " crisis ' of 
1837, 411-414, 415-418; at the middle of 
the century, 456, 610; in 1846-57, 467- 
468 ; at the beginning of the Civil War, 
496-497 ; during the war, 532 ; since the 
Civil War, 611-619. 

Education, founding of public schools and 
Harvard College in Massachusetts, 41 ; 
schools in the colonies at end of 17th cen- 
tury, 114-116; provisions of the Ordi- 
nance of 1787 for northwest territory, 
264 ; educational work among freedmen, 
576, 621 ; educational progress in the last 
half 'century, 619-622. 

Edward, Fort, 146, 213 ; Map, p. 145. 

Edwards, Jonathan, icpo. 

El Caney, battle of (with map), 597-598. 

Elastic clause of the Constitution, 277-278. 

Elections, presidential, Appendix C. 

Elective franchise, restricted to church 
members in colonial Massachusetts, 41, 
65 ; qualifications in colonial Virginia, 
63 ; restriction in New Haven colony, 
67 ; unrestricted in Connecticut colony, 67 
(foot-note); religious limitation in colonial 
Pennsylvania, 99 ; broadened democrati- 
cally in new western States, 363 ; broad- 
ened in Rhode Island, 430; universal 
manhood suffrage in District of Colum- 
bia and the Territories, and in recon- 
structed States, 564 ; practical sup]:)ression 
of the exercise of the franchise by blacks, 

, 565-566, 568, 575-576. 

Electoral Commission, 575. 

Electoral votes, act to regulate the count- 
ing of, 585-586. 

Electrical discovery and invention, 616. 
See also Telegraph. 

Elliott, Lieut. Jesse D., 343. 

Ellsworth, Col. Ephraim E., 498. 

Emancipation, compensated, offered to 
States, 510 ; enacted for District of Co- 
lumbia, 511. 

Emancipation Proclamation, 525-527, 528. 

Embargo Act (1807), 323-326 ; (1812), 339- 
340- 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 365. 



57 



INDEX. 



Endicott, John, settlement at Salem, 39; 
governor of Massachusetts, 52. 

England, ground of claim for sovereignty 
over most of North America, 8 ; Protest- 
ant Reformation and rise of Puritans and 
Independents, 14 ; conflict with Spain and 
development of maritime power, 14-15 ; 
first colonizing attempts in America, 15; 
founding of Virginia and Maryland colo- 
nies, 28-34; founding of New England 
colonies, 35-46; struggle of the people 
with King Charles I, 38, 49-5t>; bestowal 
of representative government on the colo- 
nies, 69-72 ; restored monarchy under 
Charles II., 80-81 ; bad government, 80- 
81, 94, 100 ; conquest of New Netherland 
(New York), 85-87 ; loss and recovery of 
New York, 94 ; death of Charles II. and 
accession of James II., loi ; "glorious 
revolution " of i68S, 102, io8; navigation 
acts and other " acts of trade," 111-113; 
opening of struggle with France, 123-126 ; 
acquisition of Nova Scotia, Newfound- 
land, and Hudson Bay, 126; colonial 
policy under William III., Anne, and 
the first Georges, 126-135 ! f^nn\ struggle 
with France in America, — the Seven 
Years' War, 139-150; acquisition of 
French possessions in North America 
east of the Mississippi, 150; colonial 
policy of George III., 160-179; slavery 
in the colonies and the slave trade fos- 
tered by the government, 192-193; Amer- 
ican War of Independence, 194-234 ; 
overtures for peace, — war with France 
and Spain, 219; war with revolutionary 
France, — treatment of neutrals, — im- 
pressment of American seamen, 285, 287- 
288, 318, 322-323; Jay treaty, 2S8-290; 
orders in council, 320-322 ; American em- 
bargo and non-intercourse with, 323-326, 
332-335 ; relations with the United States 
in iSii, 337-339; second war with the 
United States, 339-353 ; convention of 
1818 with the United States relative to 
boundaries, Oregon claims, and fisheries, 
370 ; West India trade opened to Amer- 
ican shipping, 415; Ashburton treaty, 
431 ; settlement of the boundary dispute, 
435-437; proclamation of neutrality in 
the American Civil War, 493-494; atti- 
tude of different classes, — cotton famine, 
— the Trent affair, 504-505; cruisers fur- 
nished to Confederate States, 529; treaty 
of Washington, — settlement of Alabama 
claims, 569-570; fisher^' and Bering Sea 
controversies (1877-92), 584-585; Vene- 
zuela controversy, 503-594 ; joint high 
commission on Canadian questions, 596. 

Epochs of Progress and Change, 609-623. 

" Era of Ciood Feelings," 366. 

Ericsson, John, 508. 

Erie (Presque Isle), 140, 150; Ji/a/ VI. Ac. 

Erie, Fort, 347-34S; Mafi, 341. 

Erie Canal, historical importance, 24, 364- 
365, 412, 609. 

Erie Railway, t.-7\, 610. 

Erskine, Mr., British minister, 332-333. 



Espanola (Hispaniola), 4; Map II. He. 
Estaing, Charles Hector, Count d', 221, 

224-225. 
Europe, early trade with the East, 2-3, 7. 
Eutaw Springs, battle, 231 ; Map, p. 225 

Bg. . 
Evangelme, source of Longfellow's tale of, 

146-147. 
Evans, Oliver, 308. 
Everett, Edward, 475. 
Excise taxes, 277, 288. 
Exeter, N. H.,45 ; Map V. Be. 
Expunging the Senate censure of President 

Jackson, 405. 

Fair Oaks, battle of, 513; Map XII. Dh. 

" Farmer's Letters," 168. 

Farragut, Admiral David G., capture of 
New Orleans, 512-513 ; operations on the 
Mississippi, 513, 533; against Mobile, 

542- 

Federal Constitution. See Constitution of 
the United States. 

" Federalist, The," 262-263. 

Federalist party, its formation and aims, 
— Hamilton's leadership, 281-284; elec- 
tion of John Adams, President, 291 ; 
extreme party measures, — alien and se- 
dition acts, 293-294 ; overthrow in 1800, 
295-296 ; inconsistency on the Louisiana 
question, 313-3(4; threatenings of seces- 
sion in New England, — plotting with 
Burr, 314-315 ; the party weakened, 316; 
John Henry intrigues, 324-325, 339; 
threatening opposition to admission of 
Louisiana, 336; English leanings, 338; 
opposition to the War of 1812, — the 
Hartford Convention, 350-351; decay 
and dissolution, 353-354. 374- 

Federalists of 1787-1788, 262-263. 

Fenian invasion of Canada, 566. 

Ferguson, Major, 227, 231-232. 

Fifteenth Amendment, 565. 

Fifteenth century, geographical ideas 
in, 2. 

" Fifty-four forty or fight," the cry, 436. 

Fillmore, Millard, elected Vice-President, 
451 ; becomes President and approves 
the compromise measures of 1850, 453 ; 
American and Whig candidate for Presi- 
dent, 465-466. 

Fisher. Fort, 544; Map, p. 545. 

Fisheries, New England, early, 109; 
rights on British-American coast secured 
in 1783,234; unsettled by War of 1812, 
and partially restored by convention of 
t8i8, 352, 370 ; privileges increased by 
Canadian reciprocity treaty (1854-66), 
460; renewed by treaty of Washington, 
1871, — Halifax award of compensation, 
584; annulled, 18S5, — rejection of new 
treaty, — change in modes of fishing, i;84. 

Fisher's Hill, battle of, 542; Map XII. 
Bd. 

Fiske, John, on Captain John Smith, 30; 
on Thomas Hooker, 67 (foot-note). 

Fitch, John, 308. 

Five Forks, battle of, 547 ; Map XII. Ci. 



58 



INDEX. 



Five Nations, 21. See Iroquois. 

Flag, American, 214 (foot-note). 

Florida, explored by Ponce de Leon, 9; 
by Fernando de Soto, 11; Huguenot 
colony, 16 ; cession by Spain to England, 
150; English government organized, 163; 
West Florida claimed by the United 
States, 315; and occupied, 335-336; first 
Seminole War, 36S-369 ; purchased from 
Spain, 369; admitted to the Union, 435; 
secession declared, 486; emancipation 
proclaimed, 528; restored to the Union, 
564-565 ; disputed electoral returns, 
1876, 574. 

Florida, the Confederate cruiser, 529. 

Floyd, John, 402. 

Floyd, John B., 486. 

Foote, Admiral Andrew H., 506, 507, 513. 

"Force Bills" of 1833,403; of 1870-71, 
568. 

Fort Orange. See Albany. Map, p. 47. 

Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitu- 
tion, 563, 564 (foot-note). 

Fox, Charles James, opposition to British 
colonial policy, 178, igo. 

Fox, George, 52. 

Frame of Government, Penn's, 98-99, 100. 

France, early explorations and attempted 
settlements in America, 10; settlements 
in Canada and Acadia, 25-28; fur trade, 
and treatment of Indians, 27-28; state 
and character of early colonies, 116-117 ; 
exploration of the interior, 117-118 ; be- 
ginning of strife with England for su- 
premacy in America, 123-126; cepsion of 
Acadia, Newfoundland, and Hudson Bay 
to England, 126; " War of the Austrian 
Succession," 138-139 ; posts in the upper 
Mississippi valley and around the Great 
Lakes, Map, p. 141 ; final struggle with 
England in America and defeat, — the 
Seven Years' War, 140-150; cession of 
all American possessions to England and 
Spain, 150; assistance to the revolting 
British colonies, 212; alliance with the 
American States, and recognition of their 
independence, 219; military and naval 
aid to Americans, 221, 224-225, 228-229, 
232-233; French Revolution in Ameri- 
can politics, 284-285 ; claim of aid against 
England, — conduct of Citizen Genet, 
285-286; hostility to the United States, 
— the X. Y. Z. affair, 291-293; peace 
treaty with the United States, 1800, 295- 
296; recovery of Louisiana and sale 
of it to the United States, 312-313 ; set- 
tlement of United States claims (1835), 
415; undertakings of Napoleon III. 
in Mexico, — attempts to intervene in 
American Civil War, 529; warned out of 
Mexico, 567. 

Franklin, Benjamin, arrival in Philadel- 
phia, 137; plan of colonial union, 144; 
agent for colonies in England, 178; his 
political writings, 190; his fame, 190; in 
Second Continental Congress, 198 ; com- 
missioner to France, 212 ; in peace nego- 
tiation, 234; in the Federal Constitu- 



tional Convention, 1787, 257; president 
of a society for promoting abolition of 
slavery, — death, 275-276. 

Franklin, battle of, 543 ; Map XIII. De. 

Frederick the Great, 147. 

Fredericksburg, battle of, 530; Map XII. 
Cf. 

Free Soil party, 450-451, 458, 459. 

Freedmen, President Lincoln on the ques- 
tion of suffrage, 548; labor laws of 1865- 
66 in reconstructed States, 562 ; Civil 
Rights Act of Congress, and Fourteenth 
Amendment, 563, 564 (foot-note); suf- 
frage to blacks and whites, 564; politi- 
cal rights annulled by intimidation or 
law, — educational work, 575-576, 621; 
race conflicts, 619. 

Freedmen's Bureau, 546. 

Freedom of speech and the press, inter- 
ferences with, in the colonies, 137; by 
the Sedition Act of 1798, 294; by the 
" slave power," 407-409; by military au- 
thority in the Civil War, 530. 

Freedom, religious. See Liberty. 

Freeman's Farm, battles of, 215. 

Freeport, " Freeport doctrine'' 471-472; 
MapXIV.Vo. 

Fremont, John C, explorations, 439; ac- 
tion in the seizure of California, 440 ; 
Republican candidate for President, 465- 
466 ; commanding Department of the 
West in the Civil War, — his Emancipa- 
tion Proclamation, 502-503, 526; candi- 
date for presidential nomination, 544. 

French and Indian War, 140-150. 

French Creek, 140, 142 ; Map VI. Ad. 

French in America. See F'rance. 

French spoliation claims, 296, 304. 

Friends. See Quakers. 

Frontenac, Count Louis De Buade de, 
123-124. 

Frontenac, Fort, 148 ; Map VI. Cb. 

Fugitive Slave Law, 452, 454-456. 

Fulton, Robert, 308, 364. 

Fundamental Agreement of New Haven 
Colony, 43, 67. 

"Fundamental Orders" of Connecticut, 
66-67 (foot-note). 

Fur trade, 27-28, 48, iio-iii, 

Gadsden, Christopher, 176, 190, 198. 

Gadsden Purchase, 442 ; Map XV. Dd. 

Gage, General, 175-176, 194-196, 200. 

Gaines's Mill, battle of, 514; Map XII. 
Dh. 

Gainesville, battle of, 527; Map XII. Ce. 

Gallatin, Albert, 311, 319, 336-337, 351. 

Gama, Vasco da, voyage round Africa to 
India, 7. 

Garfield, Gen. James A., elected President, 
581 ; murdered, 582. 

Garrison, William Lloyd, 406, 407. 

Gaspee, burning of the, 172-173. 

Gates, Horatio, credited with the capture 
of Burgoyne, — intrigues against Wash- 
ington, 215, 217 ; campaign in the Caro- 
linas, 227-228; promoter of discontent in 
the army, 236-237. 



59 



INDEX. 



Geary, John W., 464, 468. 

General Court of Massachusetts, 66. 

Genesee River. Ma/> VI. Be. 

Genet, " Citizen," 2S5-2S6. 

Geneva tribunal, 570. 

George I., 131. 

George III., beginning of his reign in Eng- 
lan.<, — his character, 160-161 ; his treat- 
ment of the colonies, 161- 178. 

George, Fort, 345. 346, 347 ; Map, p. 341. 

Georgia, the founding, 133-134; war with 
the Spaniards, 13S; ready for independ- 
ence, 205 ; state government formed, 
207 ; subjugation by the Britisli, 224-225 ; 
cession of land claims to the Confedera- 
tion, 249-250; treatment of Creek and 
Cherokee Indians, 3S3-3S4, 396 ; seces- 
sion declared, 486; emancipation pro- 
claimed, 52S ; restored to the Union, 564- 
565. 

German immigration, 129, 136. 

Germantown, battle of, 216; Map, p. 211. 

Gerry, Elbridge, 292. 

Gettysburg, battle of, 532-533 : Map XII. 
Db. 

Gettysburg address. President Lincoln's, 
536. 

Ghent, peace treaty of, 351-352. 

Gillmore, Gen. Quincy \., 534. 

Gist, Christopher, 139. 

Glendale, battle of, 514: J/z/ XII. Dh. 

Gold, discovery in California, 443 ; sus- 
pends use as money (see Specie pay- 
ments) ; price in greenbacks during and 
after the Civil War, 573 (foot-note). 

Goldsboro (with map\ 545. 

Goliad. 411 ; Map XI. Do. 

Gookin, Daniel, 115. 

Gosi old, Bartholomew, 28. 

Grant, Gen. Ulysses S., appointment to a 
district command, 502 ; capture of forts 
Henn,' and Donelson, — battle of Shiloh, 
506; luka and Corinth, 529; operations 
against Vicksburg, 531, 533 ; at Chatta- 
nooga, 536 ; appointed lieutenant-general, 
in chief command, — joins the army of 
the Potomac, — plan of campaign, 539- 
540; movement on Richmond, 540; op- 
erations at Petersburg, 541 ; surrender 
of Lee's army, 546-547; made practi- 
cally independent of the President, 564 ; 
elected President, 56S; reelected, 56S- 
569; incidents of aHministration, 569-572 ; 
question of a third term, 574, 581 ; death, 
587. 

Grasse, Count Francois de, 232-233. 

Great Bridge, battle, 204 ; Map, p. 225, Fb. 

Great Britain. See England. 

Great Lakes. See Lakes. 

Great Meadows. 142; Map J'l. Ae. 

Great Salt Lake, 443 : Map XI. Bb. 

Greeley, Horace, 544. 

Greeley, Col., 612. 

Green, Duff, 400. 

Green Mountain Boys, 198, 279. 

" Greenbacks," 532. 

Greenback party, 572-573, 574, 5S1. 

Greene, Gen. Nathanael, at siege of Bos- 



ton, 196; appointed brigadier-general, 

199; campaign in the south (with Map, 

p. 225), 227, 228, 231-232. 
Grenville, George, 162-167. 
Groveton, battle of, 527; Map XII. Ce. 
Guadalupe Hidalgo, treaty of, 442. 
Guam, 599; Map XI 'I. Cb. 
Guerriere, the British frigate, 342. 
Guilford Court House, battle of, 231; 

Map, p. 225. Cc. 
Gunboat policy, President Jefferson's, 

323- 
Guthrie, O. K., 588. 

Habeas corpus, suspensions of the writ of, 
530. 

Hale, John P., 459. 

Halfway Covenant, 65. 

Halifax. 205, Map /'. Fc. 

Halifax award, 5S4. 

Halleck, Gen. Henry W., command in 
Missouri, 503 ; generai-in-chief at Wash- 
ington, 514. 

Hamilton, Alexander, early political writ- 
ings, 190; on Washington's staff, 219; in 
the Federal Constitutional Convention, 
1787,758; chief author of " The Federal- 
ist," 262-263 ; Secretary of the Treasury, 
272-286; report on public debt and pub- 
lic credit, 273-275: advocacy of L'nited 
States Bank, — doctrine of "implied 
powers " in the Constitution, 276-278, 
2S0 ; advocacy of protective industrial 
system and internal improvements, 280; 
influence, — leader of Federal party. 281- 
283 ; at enmity with Jefferson, — retire- 
ment from Washington's cabinet, 2S6 ; 
continued political influence, 291 ; ap- 
pointed second in military command, 
293 ; duel with Aaron Burr, and death, 
315-316. 

Hamiltonian party. See Federalist part>'. 

Hampton Roads, 508; Map XII. Fi, and 
p. 509. 

Hancock, Gen. Winfield Scott, 581. 

Hancock, John, leadership in Boston, 173 ; 
attempt to arrest, 194; president of Sec- 
ond Continental Congress, 198. 

Hanoverian kings, 130-131. 

Harmar's defeat, 280-2S1. 

Harper's Ferry, John Brown's seizure, 
473-474 : Map XI. Cc. 

Harrison, Benjamin, elected President, 
5S7-5S8; administration, 5SS-590. 

Harrison, Gen. William Henr}', governor 
of Indiana Territory, — war with Tecum- 
seh, 337; operations in the War of 1812, 
343> 345> 346 ; candidate for presidency 
(1S36), 414; elected President (1S40), 
419-420; death, 428. 

Hartford, 42, 67 ; Map J'. Ad. 

Hartford Convention, 350-351. 

Hars-ard College, the founding of, 41. 

Hatteras Inlet, 505-506; JMap, p. 505. 

Hawaiian Islands, J/z/ A7V. la; annex- 
ation treaty withdrawn by President 
Cleveland, 590-591; annexation accom- 
phshed, 596. 



60 



INDEX. 



Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 365. 

Hay, John, 600, 602. 

Hay-Pauncefote treaty, 602. 

Hayes, Rutherford B., elected President, 
574-575 ; administration, 575-577. 

Hayne and Webster debate, 398. 

Hayti, 4; Map II. Hd. 

Helper's " Impending Crisis," 482. 

Henry, prince of Portugal, early explora- 
tion promoted by, 3. 

Henry, John, intrigues of, 324, 339. 

Henry, Patrick, speech on Stamp Act, 164- 
165 ; action against the Townshend acts, 
170; in the P'irst Continental Congress, 
177; his speeches, 190; in Second Con- 
tinental Congress, igS; governor of Vir- 
ginia, 217; opposition to the Federal 
Constitutional Convention, 257. 

Henry, William, 308. 

Henry, Fort, capture of, 506 ; 3Iap XIII. 
De. 

Herkimer, Col. Nicholas, 214. 

Hessians, employment of, 203. 

Hiawatha, 21. 

Higginson, Francis, 115. 

Hillsborough, ]\Iap, p. 225, Cc. 

Hilton Head, S. C, 527; Map, p. 505. 

Hispaniola. See Espanola. 

Hobkirk's Hill, battle of, 231; Map, p. 
225, Be. 

Holland, brought under Spanish rule, 12 ; 
revolt, independence, and rise to mari- 
time greatness, 13 ; claims and posses- 
sions in America (with map), 46-49; 
their surrender to the English, 85-87 ; 
recovery and second surrender, 94. See 
also New York. 

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 365-366. 

Hoist, Professor Hermann E. Von, on the 
Continental Congress, 200. 

Holt, Joseph, 487. 

Holy Alliance, the, 376-377. 

Homestead Act, 523. 

Honduras, 8 ; Map II. Ge. 

Honolulu, 590 ; Map XVI. la. 

Hood, Gen. John B., 541, 542-543. 

Hooker, Gen. Joseph, in command of the 
Army of the Potomac, 531 ; succeeded 
by Meade, 532; in Tennessee, — battle 
on Lookout Mountain, 535, 536. 

Hooker, Thomas, founder of Connecticut, 
41 ; father of American democracy, 67 
(foot-note); writer, 115. 

Houston, Cien. Sam, 411. 

Howe, Admiral Richard, earl, 208. 

Howe, George Augustus, Viscount, killed 
at Ticonderoga, 148. 

Howe, Gen. William, Viscount, at Bunker 
Hill, 201 ; in command of British forces, 
205; capture of New York, 208-209; 
failure to cooperate with Burgoyne, 215- 
216; occupation of Philadelphia, 216; 
superseded by Clinton, 220. 

Hubbardstown, battle of (with map), 213. 

Hudson Bay, ceded by France to England, 
126 ; Map II. 

Hudson River, Map II. Hb,- and p. 209 ; 
physical importance, 23-24 ; discover>'by 



Henry Hudson, 47; Dutch possession, 
47 ; surrender to the English, 85-87 ; mili- 
tary importance in th'e War of Independ- 
ence, 206. 

Huguenots, 16, 129. 

Hull, Capt. Isaac, 342. 

Hull, Gen. William, surrender of Detroit, 
340-341. 

Hulsemann letter, Webster's, 457. 

Hundred, the, in early England, 71; in 
Maryland and Virginia, 72. 

" Hunker" Democrats, 450. 

Hunter, Gen. David, command in Kansas, 
503 ; emancipation order, 536, 527 ; in 
the Shenandoah, 541. 

Huron-Iroquois, Map VI. Ac. See Iro- 
quois. 

Hutchinson, Mrs. Anne, 44-45. 

Hutchinson, Thomas, his house sacked by 
a mob, 165-166; action relative to the 
tea-ships, 174; superseded by General 
Gage, 175 ; sincerity of his Toryism, 189 ; 
his history, 191. 

Iceland, early voyages to America from, i. 

Idaho, admitted to the Union, 588. 

Illinois, under the Ordinance of 17S7, 264- 
265; territorial organization, 326; admis- 
sion to the Union, 371. 

Illiteracy, decreasing, 620. 

Immigration, increase after 1845, 443. 

Impeachment of President Johnson, 566. 

Imperialists, 601. 

Implied powers in the Constitution, the 
doctrine of, 277-278, 280. 

Impressment of seamen, British, 287-288, 
2^*9, 318, 322-323; cause of war, 340; 
unmentioned in the treaty of peace, 352. 

Income tax (1S61), 500; (1894), 593. 

Indentured servitude, 75-76; 113-114. 

Independence, ripening of public desire 
for, 203-204; demai ded, 205-206; de- 
clared, 206-207 ; completer acquisition 
after the War of 1812, 362-363. 

Independent Republicans, 583. 

Independent spirit, in colonial Massachu- 
setts, 50-51, 81-82; increasing in the 
colonies generally, 126-128, 131-132. 

Independent Treasury, or Sub-treasury 
system, 417; abolished by the Whigs, 
428 ; restored, 444. 

Independents, or Separatists, 14, 36-37. 

India, early trade of Europe with, 2-3, 7. 

Indian Territory, set apart, 396 ; purchase 
and separation of Oklahoma, 588. 

Indiana, under the Ordinance of 1787, 
264-265 ; territorial organization, 307, 
314, 326; Tecumseh's conspiracy, 337; 
admission to the Union, 371. 

Indians, American, origin of the name, 5; 
earliest knowledge of, 16-19 » linguistic 
grouping of tribes, 20-22 ; outbreak in 
Virginia, 1622, 32-33; Pequot War, 42- 
43 : purchase of land from, in Massachu- 
setts and at Providence, 44 ; war with 
the Dutch in New Netherland, 49; war 
in Virginia, 90-91 ; King Philip's War, 
92-94; Penn's dealing with, 99 ; enslave- 



61 



INDEX. 



ment in the colonies, 113: employed byi 
French in colonial wars, 123-125, 148; 
Pontiac's War, 151 ; western region as- 
signed to them by George III., 163; Iro- 
quois alliance with British in War of 
Independence, 206, 213-214, 221-223; 
northwestern war, 1790-91, 2S0-2S1 ; Te- 
cumseh's war, 337; Creek war, 346; 
first Seminole war, 368-369 ; treatment 
of Creeks and Cherokees in Georgia, 
3S3-384, 396; creation of the Indian Ter- 
ritory', 396 ; second Seminole war and 
" Black Hawk War,'' 396-397 ; wars with 
.Apaches. Modocs, and Sioux, 570. 

Industrial conditions. See Economic con- 
ditions, and Protective policy. 

Industrial conflicts, 5S7, 617-619. 

Inflation, monetary, 253-255, 367, 412-414, 
415-416, 510, 532, 570-571. 

Ingraham, Captain, 459. 

Intercolonial war, first, 123-124 ; second, 
124 ; third, 137-139. 

Internal improvements, Hamilton's policy, 
2S0 ; constitutional amendments to au- 
thorize, favored by Jefferson, 319-320; 
appropriation advocated by Calhoun and 
vetoed by Madison, 355 ; constitution- 
ality denied by Monroe, 375 ; reaction 
against the policy in the south, — up- 
held by the National Republican party, 
3S2-3S3 ; opposed by President Jackson, 
396. 

Inter-oceanic canal, Cla>'ton-Bulwer treaty', 
456-457 ; Hay-Pauncefote treaty, 602- 
603 ; Isthmian Canal .Act, — rejected Co- 
lumbian treaty, 603. 

Inter-State Commerce Commission, 5S6. 

Intolerance, religious, in Puritan Massa- 
chusetts. 41, 65; in New Haven colony, 
67; of Puritans in MaPiland, 54; ori- 
ginating cause of early colonial settle- 
ments, 63 ; revival in Slar^land, 122-123. 

Invention, 615-616. 

Iowa, admitted to the Union, 435. 

Iron-clads, 50S-509. 

Iron manufacture, development and cheap- 
ening, 613-614. 

Iroquois, the, J/z/* //. Hb ; their tribes 
^Five Nations\ their territory, and their 
political league, 20-21, ^^/Iz/, p. 26; hos- 
tility to Hurons,.Algonquins, and French, 
26-27, iiS; friendship with the Dutch. 
48; alliance with the English, 95; peace 
with the French, 125 ; declared to be sub- 
ject to the dominion of England, 126 ; the 
Five Nations become Six Nations, 130; 
treaty with English colonies at Lancas- 
ter, 1744, 140; influence of Sir William 
Johnson, 145 ; alliance with the English 
in the War of Independence, 206, 213- 
214, 221-223: New York land claims de- 
rived from tlieir conquests, 249. 

Irrepressible conflict. Senator Seward's 
statement of the, 472-473. 

Irrigation, 612. 

Irving, Washington, 365, 622. 

Isabella, queen of Castile, 3-4, 6. 

Island No. 10, 507 ; Map XIII. Ce. 



Isthmian Canal. See Inter-oceanic canal, 
luka, battle of, 529; Map XIII. Cf. 

Jackson, Andrew, in Congress from Ten- 
nessee, 290; in Creek \Var, 346; in the 
battle of New Orleans, 353 ; in the first 
Seminole War, 36S-369 ; candidate for 

E residency. 379-3S0 ; his belief that 
e was defrauded, — his character, 38 1, 
393. 4'5'' elected President by the Demo- 
cratic party, 385-386; his " kitchen cabi- 
net.'' 393-394; his introduction of the 
" spoils system " at Washington, 394-395 ; 
forecast of his policy, 395-396 ; dealing 
with Georgia and its Indian tribes, 396, 
398 ; attitude toward the protective tariff 
policy and the nullification doctrine, 
397-398; rupture with Calhoun, 399 ; re- 
election. 402 ; proclamation and action 
against the nullifying ordinance of South 
Carolina, 402-404 ; removal of deposits 
from the United States Bank, 404-405 ; 
the Sen.ite censure expunged, 405; ef- 
fects of the remo<iil of deposits, 412-413, 
414, 416; influence of President Jackson, 
414-415 ; favors annexation of Texas, 

43^- 

Jackson. Gen. Thomas J. (" Stonewall *'), 
at Bull Run, 512 (foot-note); raid into 
the Shen.indoah, 512 ; in Seven Days' 
Battles, 513 ; in campaign against Pope, 
527 ; death, 531. 

Jackson, Mr., British minister, 333. 

Jamaica, 6; Map II. He. 

James I., grants and charters to Virginia 
Company and London Company, 2S-30 ; 
hostility to London Company, 62. 

James II., treatment of Massachusetts and 
New England. 101-102; expulsion from 
the English throne, 102. 

Jamestown colony (with map), 30-32. 

Japan, Perr\''s expedition to, 457. 

Jay, John, in the First Continental Con- 
gress, 176; his writings, loo ; in the 
Second Continental Congress, 198 ; in 
New York constitutional convention, 
217; in peace negotiation, 234; author 
of papers in " The Federalist," 263 ; first 
chief justice of the L'nited States and 
acting Secretan.' of State, 273 ; special 
envoy to England, 288. 

J.iv treaty, 288-289, 290. 

Jefferson, Thomas, action in Virginia As- 
sembly against the Townshend acts, 170 ; 
reply to Lord North's "olive branch" 
proposals, 179; early political writings, 
190 ; in the Second Continental Concress, 
iqS ; author of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, 207 ; in the Virginia legisla- 
ture, 217 : mission to Fr.ance, 257 ; Secre- 
tan,' of State, 272, 273 ; leadership of the 
Anti-Federalist party, 281-284; at en- 
mity with Hamilton, — resignation from 
W.-\shington's cabinet, 286 ; elected Vice- 
President, 201 ; author of the Kentucky 
resolutions of 170S, 20^;; elected Presi- 
dent, 296 ; aims as President and theory 
of national government, 309-310; his 



62 



INDEX. 



unbelief in the need of war, 310 ; pur- 
chase of Louisiana, 312-314 ; reelected 
President, 316; broadened conceptions 
of the general government, 319-320 ; ex- 
periment in " peaceable coercion," 323- 
326 ; death, 383 ; removals from office 
during his presidency, 394. 

Jeffersonian party. See Republican party, 
Democratic. 

Jenckes, Thomas, 571-572. 

Jesuit missions, 28. 

Johnson, Andrew, elected Vice-President, 
becomes President, — previous career, 
561 ; rupture with the ruling party, 562- 
565; impeachment, 566. 

Johnson, Edward, 115. 

Johnson, Fort, Map VII. Ce. 

Johnson, Sir William, 145, 146, 151. 

Johnston, Gen. Albert S., 506. 

Johnston, Gen. Joseph E. , in the first 
battle of Bull Run, 501 ; commanding in 
Virginia, 504 ; evacuation of Manassas, 
508; wounded at Fair Oaks, 513; suc- 
ceeds Bragg in the west, against Sher- 
man, 539, 540-541 ; superseded by Hood, 
541 ; surrender, 547. 

Jomt High Commissions, 569, 584, 596. 
oliet, Louis, 117-118, 
ones, Paul, 226-227. 
Josselyn, John, 115. 

Judges, colonial, appointment at the king's 
pleasure, 162 ; salaried by the crown in 
Massachusetts, 173. 

Kahokia, 223; Map, p. 141, Be. 

Kalb, Baron Johann de, 227-228. 

Kanawha River, the Great, Map., p. 141. 

Kansas, territorial organization, by Kansas- 
Nebraska Act, repealing the Missouri 
Compromise, 460-462 ; pro-slavery and 
anti-slaverj' strife in the Territory, 463- 
464 ; the fraud of the Lecompton Con- 
stitution, and its defeat, 468-470; admis- 
sion to the Union, 488. 

Kaskaskia, 223 ; Map., p. 141, Be. 

Kearney, Gen. Philip, 439-440. 

Kearsarge, the, 542. 

Kenesaw, battle of, 541 : Map XIII. Ff. 

Kentucky, beginning of settlement, 136, 
223 ; demand for the right of navigation 
on the Mississippi, 256; admission to 
the Union, 279 ; effects of the cotton- 
pin on slavery, 30S-309 ; detachment 
in interest from the east, 307 ; Burr's 
conspiracy, 316-318; adherence to the 
Union (1861), 495. 

Kentucky resolutions, 1798, 294-295. See 
Nullification. 

Key, Francis Scott, 350. 

Kieft, William, 49. 

King, Rufus, 354. 

" King George's War," 138-139. 

•• King Philip's War," 92-94. 

" King William's War,'' 123; Map, p. 125. 

King's Mountain, battle of, 231-232 ; Map, 
p. 2J5, Ae. 

" Kitchen cabinet," President Jackson's, 
393-394. 400, 405. 



" Know Nothings." See American party. 

Knox, Gen. Henry, 272. 

Knoxville, siege of, 535, 536; Map XI I L 

Fe. 
Kossuth, Louis, 457. 
Koszta, Martin, 459. 
Ku-Klux Klan, 566. 

Labor combinations and conflicts. See 
Industrial conflicts. 

Labor parties, 595, 601. 

Labrador, 7 ; Map II. la. 

Ladrones, 599. 

Lafayette, Marquis de, services offered to 
the American colonies, 212; friendship 
with Washington, 218; in battle of Mon- 
mouth, 220; visit to France, 228 ; com- 
manding in Virginia, — at Yorktown, 
232-233 ; in the French Revolution, 284- 
285 ; visit to the United States in 1824, 
378-379- 

Lake F.ne, battle of, 344 ; Map, p. 345. 

Lake of the Woods, 370; Map XI. JDa. 

Lakes, basin of the Great, historical im- 
portance of, 23; French exploration, 
1 1 7-1 18; French possession (with map), 
— English conquest, 140-150; settlement 
prohibited by George IIL, 163; added 
to the province of Quebec, 175 ; yielded 
to the United States by Great Britain, 
234-235 ; cession of state claims, 249- 
250; Ordinance of 1787, 264-265; opened 
to settlement and trade by the Erie Canal, 
364-365, 412, 609 ; development, 1820- 
40, 411-412; development by the rail- 
way, 610. 

Lancaster, Mass., 125 ; Map V. Be. 

Lancaster, Pa., 140 ; Map VI . Cd. 

Lands, public, cessions by the States to 
the United States, 249-250 {Map VIII.) ; 
speculative buying (1825-1837), 411-414; 
distribution of land revenue, 428-429 ; 
distribution annulled, 430 ; Homestead 
Act giving free homes to settlers, 523. 

La Salle, Robert Cavelier de, 118. 

Laud, Archbishop, 40. 

Laurel Hill, battle of, 500; Map, p. 499, Eb. 

Lawrence, Capt. James, 344. 

Lawrence, Kansas, 464; Map XIV. He. 

Le Boeuf, Fort, 140, 141, 150; Map VI. 
Ad, and p. 141. 

Lecompton, Map XIV. He ; Lecompton 
constitution, 468-470. 

Lee, Arthur, 212. 

Lee, Charles, ajjpointed major-general, 
199; command in the south, 208; diso- 
bedience to Washington, — capture by 
British, 209-210; treachery while a 
prisoner, — conduct at Monmouth, 220- 
221. 

Lee, Gen, Henry, 231, 288. 

Lee, Richard Henry, 176, 190, 198. 

Lee, Robert E., in command against John 
Brown's party at Harper's Ferry, 473- 
474 ; accepts the secession of Virginia, 
495 ; commanding Confederate forces in 
Virginia in peninsular campaign, 513- 
514 ; defeat of Pope, — invasion of Mary- 



(>l 



INDEX. 



land, and retreat. 527-528 : repulse of 
Bumside. 530; defeat of Hooker, 531; 
renewed invasion of the north and retreat 
after Geit\-sburg. 532-535. 535 ; force op- 
posing Grant's movement on" Richmond, 
540; confronting Grant at Petersburg, 
541 ; retreat from Richmond and surren- 
der. 546-^47• 

Leesburg. 527: .Va/ XII. Cd. 

Legal Tender Act. i562, its passage, 510 ; 
its effects. 532. 570-571. 

Legislatures, colonial. See Assemblies, 
colonial. 

Leif Ericson. 1. 

Leisler. Jacob. 120-12 1. 

Leisler.ans, 121. 

Lenapes. See Delawares. 

Leopard and Chesapeake, the, 322-323. 

Lewis and Clark, expedition of, 319, 370. 

Lewis, Gen. Andrew, 172, 

Lexington, encounter at (with map), i^#- 
ig5. 

Liberal Christianity, 366. 

Liberal Republicans, 569. 

" Liberator." the, 406. 

Liberty pany. 434. 

Liberty, religious, in Mani-land. 35-34; 
contended for by Roger Williams. 43 : 
^Iar^•land Toleration Act of 1040. ar.d 
its treatment by the Puritans, 53-54 : es- 
tablished at ProWdence. 6S : contimied 
in Rhode Island chaner. S3-S4; estab- 
lished by chaner in the Carolinas, S4 ; 
in Pennsylvania, v>? : ad\-ances made 
after War of Independence, 20S. See 
also Intolerai;ce. religious. 

Libraries, frx^e public. 621-622. 

Lincoln. Abraham, public debate with Sen- 
ator Douglas, m Illinois, 470-472 : state- 
ment of the issue concerning slavery, 
472: elected President. 475-470; objec- 
tions to proposed Crittenden Compro- 
mise. 4S5-4S6; first inaugural address, 
4S9-4QO ; cabinet, 400 : action reladve to 
Fort Sumter, 400-491 : first and secv">nd 
calls for troops. 402-403 : proclamation ! 
of blockade of southern pons. 403; wise \ 
dealing with border slave States, 405 ; 
first message to Congress. 500; mod^ 
cation of Fremont's proclamation, 502- ! 
503 ; order for a general advance of ar- j 
mies, 507-^oS ; explanation of his action 1 
touching slaverv, 525-526; proclamation 
of emancipation prepared, 52^-527 : 
emancipation proclaimed, 52?; address 
at Gett>-i.burg. 536 ; proclamation of am- 
nesty, — plan of reconstruction, 536-530 : 
reelected President, 543-544 ; peace con- I 
ference with Vice-President Stephens, i 
546; second inaugural address. 546; 
visits to Richmond, n47 ; last speech. — 
views on reconstruction. 547-54S ; assas- 
sination, 54S-550. 

Lincoln, Gen. Benjamin, 215, 224-326. 

Literature, American, early colonial, 114- 
116; political and other N\Tiiings of later 
colonial period, 1S9-191 ; beginning of 
pure literature, 365-366; in the middle 



decades of the 19th century, and since, 
022-623. 

Little Belt, affair of the, 33S. 

Li>-ingston, Edward, 399, 403 (foot-note), 
4<H- 

Li\ingston, Philip. 176, 19S. 

Livingston, Robert R., 312-313. 

Li\-ingston, William, 176. 

Local government in the English colonies. 
70-72. 

Locke's constitution for the Carolinas, S5. 

Locomotive chase, the, 522. 

Logan, the wrongs of. 172. 

London Company, charters from James L, 
29 : reorganization, 3 1 : change in char- 
acter, 32 ; overthrow, 33. 

Long Island, Ma/ I'l. Dd ; added to New 
York, 05 ; battle of. 205-209. 

Longfellow, Henry W., 365. 

Longstreet. Gt:n. James, 535. 536. 

Lookout Mountain, battle of. ^36 ; Jlap 
XIII. Ee- 

Lopez expedition to Cuba, 458. 

Lords of Trade, i2S. 

Loudon, General, 147, 14S. 

Louis XIV., 123. 

Louisbourv:, Maf I'. Gb. and p. 158; 
capture by New Englanders. 1745 ^.'nth 
map\ 13S-139: restored to France, 139: 
ret.iken. 14S. 

Louisiana, District and Territory, 3 14. 

Louisiana, French pro\-ince, cession to 
S(>ain, 150; ceded back to France, 312; 
sold to the United States, 315; the coi>- 
stitutional question invol\-ed. 313-314; 
government organized, 314-315; the 
question of excli:d:ng slavery from, — 
the Missouri Compromise, 371-374. 

Louisiana. State, organized and admitted 
to the Union. 336; secession declared, 
4S6 ; eroancii>ation proclaimed. 52S ; 
slavery abolished by state acnon, 545 
(^foot-note"> : restored to the Union, 564- 
565; disputed electoral returns U^76). 
574 ; withdrawal of Federal military au- 
thority, 575. 

Louisiana Slaughter House Cases, 563 
(foot-ro:e>. 

Lundj's Lane, battle of, 547 ; Afa/. p. 341. 

Lyon, Gen. Nathaniel, 495-496, 502. 

McClellan, Gen. George B., campaign in 
West \*irginia (with map), 400-500*: 
called to the Army of the Potomac. 501 ; 
in general comnvand of the Union armies. 
503 ; overestimate of opj>osing army at 
NIar.assas, 504 ; tardy ad\-ance to Ma- 
nassas. 507-50S ; relieved from general 
command. 511; peninsular campaign, 
511-512. 513-514; campaign against Lee 
in Mar^•land. 52— 52S ; removal from 
conunand. 530 ; candidate for presidency. 

McCook. Gen. Alexander M.. 53:. 
McCrea. Jenny. 214. 
Macdonough, Commodore Thomas. 34S. 
McDowell, Gen. Irvin. commanding Army 
of the Potomac, — battle of BuB Run, 



64 



INDEX. 



500-501 ; during McClellan's peninsular 

campaign. 51^. 
McHenn.-. Fort. 349-3 ;o. 
McKinley. William, name connected with 

the tarid" act of iSoo, 5SS-5S0; elected 

President. 595 ; reelection. — murder, 

Mcl.ane. Louis. 390. 404. 

McPherson. Ci^n. lames B.. 541. 

McKae. Fort. 4^7 ; J/:»/ XI II. Di. 1 

Madison. James, in the Federal Constitu- 
tional Convention. 17S7. ^j'-^SS ; con- 
tributor to " The Federalist," ^0^-263; 
leader in First Congress, 2-1 ; becomes 
an Anti-Federalist. ;S2 ; author of the 
Vir?:inia resolutions of 170S. 205 ; Sec- 
retary of State. 311: elected President, ; 
325 ; misled by the British minister. 
333; deceived by Napoleon, 333-335; 
recommendation of war with England, 
330-340: reelected President, 343. 

Magellan, voyage of. g. 

Maine, granted to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, 
46 ; claimed by Massachusetts, 89-90 ; 
under Andros, 102 ; population and con- 
dition in 16SS, 10S-116, annexed to Mas- 
sachusetts, 120; sufferings in Queen 
Anne's War (with niap\ 125 ; separation 
from Massachusetts and admission to the 
Union. 372-373. 

Maine, battleship, sg6-e;97. 

M.alvern Hill, bat'tle of, 514; Map XII. 
Dh. 

Manassas Junction, 501, ^oS ; Map XII. 
Ce. 

Manhattan Island, settled by the Dutch 
(with mapl, 47-4S ; taken by the Eng- 
lish. 56-S7. 

Manila, naval battle. — siege and capture, 
597. 59S ; M.ip. p. 507. 

Manors, New York. 1SS-1S9, 430-431. 

Manufacturing industries, forbidden or dis- 
couraged in English colonies, 12S, 132- 
133 : condition at the beginning of the 
War of Independence, 1S7-1SS ; Hamil- 
ton's report on, 2S0: progress since the 
Civil War, 613-615. See also Protective 
policy, industrial. 

Marcy, William L.. 450-460. 

Mariana Islands. 500; Map X'l'I. Cb. 

Marietta. Ohio, 205; Map IX. Dd. 

Marion, Francis, 227. 

Marlborough. Duke of. 126. 

Marquette, Father Jacques, 117-11S. 

Marshall, John, mission to France, 292; 
appointed chief justice, — his constitu- 
tional decisions, 296, 36S. 

M.iryland, founded as a "palatinate " by 
p.Vtent to Lord Baltimore (.with map), 
33-34, 63, 69; religious and political lib- 
erty established, 34; toleration act of 
1640. 53-54: Puritan domination, 54; 
local government, — the "hundreds," 
70-72 : social structure and character, 
73~74 • population and industries at 
end of 17th century', loS-iio. 1 11-113; 
slaven.' and indentured servitude, 113; 
revolution of 16SS, — proprietary govern- 



ment taken away and restored, — intoler- 
ance revived, 122-123 : action upon the 
news of Lexington and Concord, 106- 
197; state government formed, 207: ac- 
tion relative to western land claims of 
the States, 240-250: effects of the cot- 
ton-gin on slavery, 30S-3C9; suppression 
of secessionists in iSoi, 403 ; invasion by 
Lee (,iSo2\ 527-52S; slavery abolished 
by state action, 545 (.foot-note). 

Maskoki tribes, 21 ; J/<j/ //. Cic. 

Mason, George, igo, 257. 

NLison, John, 1 15. 

M.ison. John Y., 4C>:>. 

^L^sou and Dixon's Line. Map XII'. Kc ; 
its origin, etc.. oS, 276, 306. 

Mason and Slidell. capture of, 505. 

Massachusetts, the Governor ar.d Com- 
pany of Massachusetts Bay. its charter, 
39-40 ; settlement of Boston and ^ icin- 
ity, 40; hostility in England, 40: Puri- 
tan exclusiveness. 41 : secession of Con- 
necticut settlements, 41-42 : expulsion 
of Roger Williams. 43-44: banishment of 
Mrs. Anne Hutchinson. 45 : decrease of 
Puritan immisration, 46: confederation 
of New England colonies, 46 : theory 
of chartered rights, and substantial in- 
dependence, 50-51; establishment of a 
mint, 50-51 ; persecution of Quakers, 
52-53 ; political structure of the early 
colony, 65-66.69; local goveniment. — 
town-meetings, 70-72 ; assertion of 
"Liberties." — attitude towards the re- 
stored English monarchy. S1-S2 : resist- 
ance to the king's conmiissioners. 1664, 
87-SQ : annulment of the charter, 100- 
101; treatment under Andros, 101-102; 
populatii'ii and industries at end of 
17th centun.-, loS-iio. 111-113; slaves 
and slaver>', 113-114: education and 
literature, 114-116; overthrow of An- 
dros, 119; newly chartered as a royal 
province, 119-120; Plymouth and Maine 
annexed, 120: partici;\ition and suffer- 
ing in colonial wars \\ith France, 124- 
126; capture of Louisbourg. 13S-139; pro- 
posal of Stamp Act Congress, 165 ; cir- 
cular letter to the colonies. 16S-169; 
punishment by the "Regulating Act" 
and the Boston Port Eiil, 174-175 : call 
for a Continental Congress, 175; provi- 
sional government formed. — " Conmit- 
tee of Safetv." 170: social condition at 
the end of the colonial period, iSo: ex- 
tinction of slavery-, 192 ; engagement in 
the slave trade, 193 ; opening of the War 
of Independence, 194-106; declares for 
independence, 206 ; state government 
formed, 207; cession of land claims to 
the Confederation, 249-250: attitude in 
the War of 1S12, 350-351 ; se^xiration of 
Maine, 3-2-373 ; Sixth Regiment at- 
tacked in Baltimore, 492. 

Massasoit, 37, 93. 

Matamoras. 43S-439 ; Map, p. 440. 

Mather. Cotton, 191. 

Mather. Increase, iis. 



INDEX. 



Maumee River, Map^ p. 345. 
Maximilian, Emperor, 567. 
Mayflower compact, 64. 
Mayflower, voyage of the, 36. 
Meade, Gen. George G. , 



command of 



the Army of the Potomac, 532-533. 535. 

539- 

Measures of the national government, Ap- 
pendix D. 

Mechanicsville, battle of, 514 ; Map XII. 

Mecklenburg County, resolutions of 1775, 
197; Map VII. Bd. 

Memphis, Tenn., 513; Map XIII. Bf. 

Merit system. See Civil service reform. 

Merrimac River, as named in the Massa- 
chusetts charter, 39, 89 ; Map V. Be. 

Merrimac, the iron-clad, 508-509, 512. 

Mexico, Map II. Ed ; conquest by Cortes, 
9 ; expedition of Coronado, 1 1 ; Spanish 
plundering, 13 ; aboriginal inhabitants 
and their state of culture, 19 ; overthrow 
of Spanish rule, — independence, 335, 
376 ; revolt and separation of Texas, 410- 
411; war with the United States, 437- 
442 ; treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, — 
cession of territory to the United States, 
442 ; attempted French conquest, — 
Maximilian's short-lived empire, 529, 

567- 

Mexico, Citv of, capture, 442 ; Map, p. 441. 

Mexico, Gulf of, 9 ; Map II. Gd. 

Michigan, under the Ordinance of 1787, 
264-265 ; territorial organization, 326. 

Milan decree, 322, 334-335- • 

Miles, Gen. Nelson A., 599. 

Military arrests, 530. 

Mill Spring, battle of, 507; Map XIII. 
Fd. 

Mills Bill, 587. 

Mims, Fort, 346 ; Map IX. Be. 

Minnesota, admitted to the Union, 470 
(foot-note). 

Mint, in colonial Massachusetts, 51-52; 
of the United States, 254-255. 

Minute men, 179. 

Missionary Ridge, battle of, 536; Map 
XIII. Ee. 

Missions to the Indians, Catholic, 28, 117. 

Mississippi River, Map II. Fc; entered 
by Pineda, 9; reached by Narvaez, 10; 
crossed by Fernando de Soto, 1 1 : French 
exploration, 117-11S; the question with 
Spain of its navigation, 236; treaty 
freeing the navigation, 290; first steam- 
boat, 364 ; operations in the Civil War to 
open navigation, 507, 512-513. 531, 533. 

Mississippi, the State, territorial organiza- 
tion, 307, 336 ; admission to the Union, 
371 ; secession declared, 486 ; emancipa- 
tion proclaimed, 52S; restored to the 
Union, 564-565. 

Mississippi Valley, great feature of the 
continent, 22 ; early exclusion of the 
English and introduction of the French, 
23; historical influence, 23-24; early 
French exploration, 117-118; English 
neglect, 134-135; French and English 



struggle for (with map), 139-149; colo- 
nial indifference to French occupation, 
142-143 ; cession of French posses- 
sions to England and Spain, 150 ; English 
portion yielded to the United States, 234- 
235 ; detachment in interest from the 
east, 307; Burr's conspiracy, 316-318; 
democratic conditions of society, 363- 
364 ; settlement promoted by steam nav- 
igation, 364, 412, 609-610; western 
Spanish boundaries defined, 369 ; devel- 
opment (1820-1840), 411-412 ; later west- 
ern development, 609-611, 613. 

Missouri, territorial organization, 314 ; pro- 
posed exclusion of slaven,-. — Compro- 
mise, — admission to the Union, 372- 
374; invasions of Kansas, 463-464; ad- 
herence to the Union (1861), 495-496; 
Fremont in command, 502-503 ; slavery 
abolished by State action, 545 (foot-note). 

Missouri Compromise, 372-374; its repeal, 
460-462 ; declared unconstitutional by 
the Dred Scott decision, 466-467. 

Mitchel, Gen. Ormsby M., 506-507. 

Mobile, Farragut in the harbor, 542 ; Map 
XIII. Di. 

Modocsjwar with the, 570; Map XI. Aa. 

Mohawks. See Iroquois. 

Mohegans, neutral in King Philip's War, 
94; Map J'. Ad. 

Molasses Act, 162. 

Molino del Rev, battle of (with map), 441. 

Monetary questions and measures, "conti- 
nental currency," 218, 228, 253-254 ; 
first United States Bank charter, 276-278; 
dissolution of the bank, 336-337 ; bank in- 
flation, — " wild-cat " banks (1811-21X 
— second bank of the United States, 367, 
368 ; overthrow of the bank by President 
Jackson, 395-396, 400-401, 404-405; 
"wild-cat" banks (1833-37), 412-414, 
415-416; President Van Buren's "inde- 
pendent treasury'' system, 417; New 
York banking law of 1838, 417-418; 
suspension of specie payments, 1861, 
500-510; Legal Tender Act, 1862, 510; 
national bank system, 532 ; opposition 
to resumption, — Greenback party, 572- 
573 ; the Bland Silver Bill, 576-577 ? 
resumption accomplished, 577 ; the Sher- 
man Act, 589-590 ; crisis consequent on 
the Shermkn Act, —partial repeal of the 
act, 591-592; monetary commission to 
Europe, 505 ; act defining the standard 
" dollar " in gold, 596. - 

Monitor and Merrimac, battle of the (with 

map), c;oS-5oc). 
Monitor ironclads, 50S-509, 512, 534. 
Monmouth Court House, battle of, 220; 

Map, 21 T Fg. 
Monroe, James, minister to France, 291- 
292 ; special mission to France, 313 ; 
Secretary of State and Acting Secretary 
of War, 349; elected President, 354; 
the " era of good feelings," 366 ; reelected 
without opposition, 374-375 '• message 
embodying the " Monroe Doctrine," so- 
called, 376-378. 



66 



INDEX. 



Monroe Doctrine, 376-378. 

Monroe, Fortress, 498, 511, 539, 546; 
Map XII. Fi, and p. 509. 

Montana, partly included in Nebraska Ter- 
ritory, 461 ; admitted to the Union, 58S. 

Montcalm, Marquis de, 147-149. 

Monterey (with map), 440. 

Montgomery, Ala., 4S9. 

Montgomery, Richard, 199. 

Montreal, Map V. Ab ; first settlement, 
117 ; colonial English expeditions against, 
124 ; capture by General Montgomery, 
202-203 ; expedition against in 181 3, 346. 

Monts, Sieur de, 25-26. 

Moore's Creek, battle ot, 205'; Map, p. 225, 
De. 

Morgan, Abduction of, 385. 

Morgan, Gen. Daniel, 202, 203, 215, 231. 

Mormons, 442-443, 451, 468, 612. 

Morrill tariff, 488. 

Morris, Gouverneur, 254-255, 257. 

Morris, Robert, 255, 257, 268. 

Morris Island (with map), 534. 

Morristown (with map), 211-212. 

Morton, Nathaniel, 115. 

Moultrie, Col. William, 208. 

Mound-builders, 17-18. 

Mount Vernon, home of Washington, 238 ; 
Map XII. De. 

" Mugwumps," 583. 

Murfreesboro, 53 1 ; Map XIII. Ee. 

Muskingum River, Map, p. 141, Ed. 

Muskogean tribes, 21 ; Map II. Gc. 

Napoleon Bonaparte, in Egypt and Syria, 
293 ; sale of Louisiana to the United 
States, 312-313; war with England, — 
Berlin and Milan decrees, 320-322 ; trick- 
ery with the United States, 333-335 ; 
downfall, 346-347. 

Napoleon III., 529, 567. 

Narragansett Bay, first settlements on 
(with map), 44 ; Map V. Bd. 

Narragansetts, Map V. Bd ; in King Phil- 
ip's War, 93. 

Narvaez, expedition of, 10. 

Nashville, Map XIII. De; occupied by 
General Buell, 506 ; defeat of Hood by 
Thomas, 543. 

Nassau, Fort, on the Delaware, Map, 
p. 47. 

Nassau, Fort, on the Hudson, 48. 

Nat Turner insurrection, 407. 

National bank system, 532. 

National Republican party, formed in sup- 
port of the administration of John 
Quincy Adams, 382-383 ; defeated in 
1828, 385-386 ; and in 1832, 400-401, 402 ; 
merged m Whig party, 414. 

National Silver party, 595. 

Naumkeag, 39. 

Nauvoo, 443 ; Map XI. Da. 

Navigation acts, English, 80, 111-112. 

Navy, in the War of Independence, 226- 
227; against the Barbary pirates, 310- 
311, 318, 353; in the War of 1812, 342- 
344, 348 ; in the Civil War, 504-506, 507, 
508-509, S12-513, 534, 542, 551- 



Nebraska, territorial organization by Kan- 
sas-Nebraska Act, repealing the Missouri 
Compromise, 460-462 ; admitted to the 
Union, 564. 

Necessity, Fort, 142 ; Map VI. Ae. 

Netherlands, brought under Spanish rule, 
12; revolt and independence, 13. See 
also Holland. 

Neutral rights, violation of, in the wars 
between England and France, 286-287, 
318, 320-322. 

Neutrality, British, in the American Civil 
War, 493-494. 

Nevada, acquisition by the United States, 
442 ; territorial organization, 488 ; admis- 
sion to the Union, Appendix B. 

New Amsterdam. See New York City ; 
Map, p. 47. 

New Brunswick, N. J., 212; Map, p. 211, 
Ef. 

New England, mapped, named, and de- 
scribed by Captain John Smith, 35 ; 
founding of first colonies, 36-45 ; de- 
crease of Puritan immigration, 46 ; con- 
federation of four colonies, 46 ; substan- 
tial independence, 50-52 ; early political 
and social development, 62-76 ; local 
government, — town-meetings, 70-72 ; at- 
titude toward the restored king, Charles 
II., 81-82 ; visit of king's commissioners, 
87-S9 ; under the rule of Andros, 101- 
102 ; population, industries, and trade at 
the end of the 17th century, 108-112; 
slavery and indentured servitude in the 
colonies, 113-114; education and litera- 
ture, 114-116; participation and suffering 
in colonial wars with the French, 123- 
126; capture of Louisbourg, 138-139; 
the revolutionary rising, 195-196; forma- 
tion of state governments, 207 ; strength 
of Federalist party, 309 ; threatening op- 
position to the Louisiana Purchase, 313- 
315 ; and to tiie embargo policy, 324-325 ; 
disaffection in the War of 1812, — the 
Hartford Convention, 350-351 ; opposed 
to protective tariff in 1816, 355; divided 
on tariff of 1824, 376; supports tariff of 
1828, 384. 

New France, 25-28 ; cessions to England 
and Spain, 150. 

New Hampshire, early settlements, 45 ; 
claimed by Captain John Mason, 46; 
claimed by Massachusetts, 89-go ; under 
Andros, 102 ; population and condition 
in 1688, 108-116: suffering in "Queen 
Anne's War" (with map), 125; state 
government formed, 207. 

New Hampshire grants, 197-19S, 279. 

New Haven, Conn., first settlement, 42, 
43; "Fundamental Agreement," 67: 
joined to Connecticut colony, 83 ; Map 
V. Ad. 

New Hope Church, battle of, 541 ; Map 
XIII. Ff. 

New Jersey, origin and name, 87 ; sale of 
West Jersey to Quakers, 95-96 ; sale of 
East Jersey to Penn and others, 96 ; under 
Andros, 102; population, industries, and 



(>7 



INDEX. 



trade at end of 17th century, 108-113; 
slavery and indentured servitude, 1 13-1 14 ; 
becomes a royal province, 121 ; action 
upon the news of Lexington and Con- 
cord, 196; state government formed, 207 ; 
attitude towards Continental Congress, 
255- 

Nesv Madrid, 507; Map XIII. Cd. 

New Mexico, I\kip II. Ec ; Coronado's 
expedition to, 11 ; claim by Texas, 437- 
438 ; acquisition by the United States, 
439-442 ; as occupied and known in 1S49, 
Map X. ; the question of excluding 
slavery, — the " Wilmot Proviso," 444- 
445 ; purchase of Texas claim, and terri- 
torial organization with no reference to 
slavery, 454. 

New Netherland. See New York. 

New Orieans, Map IX. Bf; cession by 
France to Spain, 150 ; privileges conceded 
to American merchants, 290; ceded back 
to France, 312; sold to the United 
States, 313; discontent of people, — 
plotting with Burr, 316-31S; battle (1S15). 
352-353 ; first steamboat, 364 ; seizure of 
Federal property, — General Dix's mes- 
sage, 4S7-4S8 ; capture by Farragut, 512. 

New York Central Railway, 610. 

New York City, founded by the Dutch and 
named New Amsterdam, 48; taken by 
the English and re-named, 86-S7 ; colonial 
Congress, 1690, 124 ; Stamp Act Con- 
gress, 165 ; mobbing of Governor Colden, 
166; treatment of tea-ships, 174 : action 
upon the news of Lexington and Con- 
cord, 196; Washington defending the 
city, 206, 208; taken by the British, 208- 
209 ; evacuation by the British, 236, 
238 ; progress in 1800, 306 ; effects of 
the Erie Canal, 365 ; draft riot, 533-534; 
" Tweed Ring," 571, 574 ; early railway 
connections, 610. 

New York Colony and State, aboriginal 
inhabitants, 20; Dutch occupation and 
early settlement (with map), 46-4S ; 
ill-government, 48-49 ; Dutch patroon 
system, 75 ; conquest by the English, 
and grant to the Duke of York, 85- 
87; loss and recovery by the English, 
94 ; under Andros, 94-96 ; Governor Don- 
gan, 96 ; first representative assembly, 96 ; 
united witii New England, under Andros, 
102; population, industries, and trade at 
end of 17th century, 108-113 ; slavery and 
indentured servitude, 1 1 ^-i 14 ; education 
and literature, 114-116; the revolution of 
1688 and Jacob Leisler, 120-121; quar- 
rels with the governor, 139 ; indifference 
to French occupation of western country, 
142; resistance to Billeting Act, — sus- 
pension of assembly, 167 ; social state at 
the end of the colonial period, 188-189; 
strength of Tory party, 189, 206 ; gradual 
emancipation of slaves, 191-192; state 
government formed, 207 ; Fory and In- 
dian raids in the War of Independence, 
— Sullivan's expedition, 221-223; ces- 
sion of land claims to the Confederation, 



249-250 ; struggle over the ratification 
of the Federal Constitution, 263 ; claim 
to Vermont, 279; building of the Erie 
Canal, 364-365 ; political factions, " Clin- 
tonians,-' " Bucktails," and Anti-Ma- 
sons, 385-386; "spoils system," 395; 
banking law of 1838, 417-418; anti-rent 
disturbances, 430-431; "Barnburner" 
and "Hunker" Democrats, 450-451; 
Seventh Regiment at Washington (i86i), 
493- 

Newark, N. J., 83 ; Map I'l. Dd. 

Newbern, N. C-, 506; Map, p. 225, Ed. 

Newburgh, Newburgh Address, 236-237 ; 
Map I'l. Dd. 

Newfoundland, Map V. Ha ; ceded by 
France to England, 126; French fishing 
rights, 150. 

Newport, R. I., Map V. Bd ; first settle- 
ment, 44-45 ; held by the British, — at- 
tacked by Americans and French, 221; 
French fleet blockaded in harbor, 229. 

Newspapers, the first American, 130; 
others, early, 137. 

Newtown, ^iass. (afterward Cambridge), 
41-42, 66 ; Map, p. 39. 

Newtown. N. Y. (Elmira), battle, 222; 
Map VI. Cc. 

Niagara, Fort, Map VI. Be, and p. 141 Fb ; 
in the wars with the French, 135, 145, 
146, 150 ; in the War of Independence, 
222, 22 ?; in the War of 181 2, 346. 

Niagara frontier in 1812-14 (with map), p. 
341- 

Nicaragua canal route, 603. 

Nicolet, Jean, 117. 

NicoUs, Col. Richard, governor of New 
York and commissioner to New Eng- 
land, 86-87. 

Niles, Samuel, 191. 

Nipmucks, 93 : Map V. Bd. 

Nominating conventions, their beginning, 
400-401 (foot-note). 

Non-importation measures, colonial, 170, 
172, 178; in Jefferson's administration, 
323-326. 

Non-intercourse Act, 325-326, 332-335. 

Norfolk, Va., 508,50^ (with map), 512. 

North, Lord (Frederick, Earl of Guilford), 
head of the British ministry, 16S ; repeal 
of the Townshend Acts, 170: olive 
branch offered to the colonies, 178; over- 
tures for peace, 219-220; resignation, 
233- 

North Anna River, battle of, 540; Map 
XII. Cg. 

North CaroHna, early settlements, 84-85 ; 
proprietary government, 85; population, 
industries, and trade at end of 17th cen- 
tury, 108-113, 123; slavery and inden- 
tured servitude, 113-114; Indian War 
(1711-13), 130; became a royal province, 
133; Scotch-Irish settlements, 136; the 
" Regulators," 171 ; first hostilities with 
the royal government, 197; battle of 
Moore's Creek, — resolution for independ- 
ence, 205 ; state government formed, 
207 ; Greene's campaign against Com- 



6S 



INDEX. 



wallis, 230-2,^1 ; cession of land claims 
to the Confederation, 249-250; tardy 
ratification of the Federal Constitution, 
264, 276 ; session declared, 494 ; eman- 
cipation proclaimed, 528 ; restored to the 
Union, 564-565. 

North Dakota, included in Nebraska Ter- 
ritory, 461; in Dakota Terrritory, 488; 
admitted to the Union, 588. 

Northmen, discovery of America by the, i. 

Northwest passage, search for, 9-10. * 

Northwestern territory, the old, claimed 
by Virginia, 29-30, 140; conquest by 
Clark, 223-224; yielded to the United 
States by Great Britain, 234 ; cession of 
state claims, 249-250 ; Ordinance of 
1787, 264-265; reenacted in 1789, 271; 
population in 1800, 307. 

Nova Scotia, Map I'. Ec ; grant to Sieur 
de Monts, 25 ; ceded (as Acadia) by 
France to England, 126; dispersion of 
Acadian French, 146-147. 

Nueces River, 437, 438 : Ma/>, p. 440. 

Nullification, the doctrine of, first formu- 
lation, 294-295 ; revived in South Caro- 
lina, 397-398 ; nullifying ordinance, 402- 
404. 

O'Conor, Charles, 569. 

Ogdensburg, 343. 

Oglethorpe, Gen. James, 133-134. 

Ohio Company (of 1748), 139; (of 1787), 
264-265. 

Ohio River and Valley, historical influence, 
23-24 ; English neglect, 134-135 ; French 
and English struggle for (with map"), 139- 
149 ; colonial indifference to F'rench oc- 
cupation, 142-143 ; cession by France to 
England, 150; settlement prohibited by 
George III., 163; added to the province 
of Quebec, 175 ; beginnings of settle- 
ment, 136, 223 ; yielded by England to 
the United States, 234-235 ; cession of 
state claims, 249-250 ; importance of a 
right to navigation of the Mississippi, 
256; population in 1800, — detachment 
in interest from the east, 307 ; Burr's 
conspiracy, 316-318; democratic condi- 
tions of society, 363-364; settlement pro- 
moted by steam navigation, 364, 412, 
609-610; development (1820-40), 411- 

412. 

Ohio, the State, under the Ordinance of 
1787, 264-265; territorial and state or- 
ganization, 307. 

Oklahoma, 5S8. 

Oneidas. See Iroquois. 

Onondagas. See Iroquois. 

Orange, Fort. 48; 3Ia/<, p. 47. 

Orders in Council, British, 320-322. 

Ordinance of 1787,264-265; reenacted by 
Congress in 1789, 271. 

Oregon, Lewis and Clark's exploration, 
319; American and English claims, — 
joint occupancy arranged (1818), 370; set- 
tlement of the boundary dispute, 435- 
437; as occupied and known in 1849, 
Ma/> X. ; territorial organization, exclud- 



ing slavery, 444-445 ; admission to the 
Union, 470 (foot-note); disputed elec- 
toral returns, 1876, 574 

Orinoco River, 6; Mn^ II. If. 

Oriskany, battle of, 214; Map, p. 145. 

Orleans, territory of, 314, 336. 

Ostend manifesto, 460. 

Oswald, Mr., 233-234. 

Oswego, 135, 146, 147; Map VI. Cc. 

Otis, James, 161, igo. 

Pacific Ocean, discovery of, 9. 

Pacific railways, 611. 

Pacific slope in 1849, Map X. 

Paducah, 502; Map XIII. Cd, and p. 503. 

Paine, Thomas, 190, 204, 210. 

Pakenham, Gen. Sir Edward M., 353. 

Palatinate, in Maryland, 33,68; in the 
Carolinas, 84. 

Palmer, John M., 594-595. 

Palo Alto, battle of, 439 ; Map, p. 440. 

Panama, Map II. Hf ; Congress (1825), 
383 ; Clayton-Bulwer canal treaty, 456- 
457 ; Hay-Pauncefote treaty, — Isthmian 
canal act, 602-603. 

Pan-American Exposition, 601. 

Panics, financial. See Crises. 

Paper money, irredeemable, " Continental 
currency," 218, 228; after the War of 
Independence, 253-254 ; " wild-cat " 
banking, 367-368, 412-413; legal tender 
notes, — "greenbacks," 510, 532, 570- 

57i> 572-573- 

Parishes, 71-72. 

Parkman, Francis, on French treatment of 
the Indians, 28. 

Parsons, Gen. Samuel, 264. 

Parties, Political.^ See Federalists of 1787- 
88 ; Federalist party ; Anti-Federalist 
party ; Republican party (Democratic 
1793-1825); National Republican party; 
Democratic party ; Anti-Masonic party; 
Whig party ; Liberty party ; Free Soil 
party; Barnburner and Hunker Demo- 
crats; Republican party (Anti-slavery); 
American ("Know Nothing") party; 
Constitutional Union party ; War Demo- 
crats ; Copperheads; Liberal Republi- 
cans ; Greenback party ; Prohibition 
party; Independent Republicans (" Mug- 
wumps '"); People's (Populist) party; 
National Silver party ; Labor parties. 
See also Appendix C 

Patriot war, Canadian, 418-419, 431. 

Patroon system in New Netherland, 74- 
75, 188, 430-431. 

Patterson, Gen. Robert, 501. 

Patuxent River, Map, p. 349. 

Pauncefote, Rt. Hon. Sir Julian, 602. 

Pawnee tribes, 21. 

Pea Ridge, battle of, 507 ; Map, p. 503, 
Ab. 

Peace conferences in the Civil War, 544, 
546. 

^ These parties are named in the chrono- 
logical order of their appearance in Ameri- 
can politics. 



69 



INDEX. 



Peace Convention, 1861, 488-489. 

Peace treaty with Great Britain (.1783), 234- 
235; (1814), 351-352- 

Peaceable coercion, Jefferson's theory of, 
310; its trial, 323-325. 

Peach Tree Creek, battle of, 541; Map 
XIII. Ff. 

Peage money, S'-S^- 

Pearl River, Map XI. Eb. 

Pendleton, Edmund, 176. 

Pendleton Act, 582. 

Peiihallow, Samuel, 191. 

Peninsular campaign, McClellan's, 511- 
512, 513-514. 

Penn, William, in New Jersey affairs, 96; 
early life and character, 96-97 ; obtains 
grant of Pennsylvania, 97-98, founding 
of colony, 97-99; " Frame of Govern- 
ment," 98 ; temporarily deprived of au- 
thority, 121-122; second visit to his 
colony, — " Charter of Privileges," 122 ; 
death, 136. 

Pennsylvania, Dutch claims, 47-48; 
founded by William Penn, 96-99 ; 
" Frame of Government," 98-99, 100; 
population, industries, and trade at end 
of 17th century, 10S-113; slavery and 
indentured servitude, 113-114; education 
and literature, 116; Penn temporarily 
deprived of authority, 121-122; "Char- 
ter of Privileges," 122; indifference to 
French encroachments in western parts, 
142-143; ending of slavery, 192; state 
government formed, 207 ; Connecticut 
land claims, 249-250; whiskey rebellion, 
288; prosperity in 1800, 306. 

Pensacola, 369, 487; Map XI. Eb. 

People's (Populist) party, 590, 594. 

Pepperel, Sir William, 139. 

Pequots, 42-43 ; Map V. Bd. 

Percy, George, ii6. 

Perd'ido River, Map XI. Eb. 

Perry, Capt. Oliver H., 344-345. 

Perry, Commodore Matthew C, expedi- 
tion to Japan, 457. 

Perryville, battle of, 528-529; Map XIII. 
Ec. 

Petersburg, Va , I\Iap XII. Ci, and p. 
225, Ea ; military operations at, 541 ; Con- 
federate evacuation, 547. 

Petition, the right of, struggle in Con- 
gress over, 408-410, 435. 

Philadelphia, Map VI . Ce ; founded, 99 ; 
rapid growth, 122; arrival of Benjamin 
Franklin, 137; treatment of tea-ships, 
174, first Continental Congress, 175- 
176; action upon the news of Lexington 
and Concord, 196; second Continental 
Congress, 198-200; occupied by the 
British, 216; evacuated by the British, 
220; flight of Congress to Princeton, 
237; prosperity in 1800, 306; Centennial 
Exposition, 573. 

Philippi, battle of, 500; I\Iap, p. 49q, Da. 

Philippine Islands, Map XVI . Ab, Ac ; 
discovery by Magellan, g ; naval and 
military operations, 1898, — acquisition 
from Spain, 597-599; suppression of na- 



tive revolt, — establishment of civil gov- 
ernment, 599-600. 

Phips, Sir William, 124. 

Physical features of North America, 22-24. 

Pickens, Andrew, 227. 

Pickens, Fort, 487 ; Map XIII. Di. 

Pierce, Franklin, election and administra- 
tion, 458-465. 

Pilgrim fathers of New England, 36-37. 

Pillow, Fort, 513 ; Map XIII. Be. 
«Pinckney, Charles C, 292. 

Pineda, Alvarez de, 9. 

Pine-tree shillings, 52. 

Pinkney, Thomas, 291. 

Pitt, Fort (Fort Duquesne, — Pittsburg), 
Map VI. Ad. 

Pitt, William, the elder, Earl of Chatham, 
his conduct of the war with France, 148; 
resignation of prime ministry, 160; oppo- 
sition to the Stamp Act, i66: nominal 
premiership, — accepts peerage, 167; op- 
position to king's colonial policy, 178; 
tribute to the Continental Congress, 190; 
opposition to American independence, — 
death, 219-220. 

Pittsburg, Map XI. Fa ; English and 
French fort building, 141 ; the French 
Fort Duquesne, 145 ; expulsion of 
French, 147; named Fort Pitt, — Indian 
siege in Pontiac's War, 151 ; first steam- 
boat (181 1), 364. 

Pittsburg Landing, 506; Map XIII. Co. 

Plattsburg, battles at, 348. 

Plymouth Colony, founded by the May- 
flower Pilgrims, 36-37 ; population in 
1640, 46; a self-constituted republic, 64- 
65, 69; under Andros, 102; population, 
etc., 1688, 108-116; annexed to Massa- 
chusetts, 120. 

Plymouth Company, grant to, 29 ; failure 
of Popham colony, 30 ; reorganized as 
The Council for New England, 37. 

Point Pleasant, battle of, 172 ; Map, p. 
141. 

Pokanokets. See Wampanoags. 

Polk, James K., elected President, 433- 
434 ; programme o[ his administration, 
435, 444 ; war with Mexico, 437. 

Ponce de Leon, Juan, 9. 

Pontiac's War, 151. 

Pope, Gen. John, capture of New Madrid 
and Island No. 10, 507 ; command of the 
Army of Virginia, 514; defeat by Lee, 

527- 
Popham colony, 30 ; Map V. Cc. 
Popular sovereignty, the doctrine of, 461, 

467, 471. 
Population, of colonies (1688), 108-109; 

(1775), 1S6 ; of United States (1790), 276 ; 

(1800), 306-307; (1820-1840), 411-412 ; 

(i860), 496; epochs of movement, 609- 

61 1, 612-613. 
Populist party. See People's party. 
Port Bill, Boston, 174. 
Port Hudson, 533 ; Map XIII. Ai. 
Port Royal, N. S., 25; Map V. Ec. 
Port Royal, S. C , 506; Map, p. 505. 
Porter, Admiral David D., 533, 544. 



70 



INDEX. 



Porter, Gen. Fitz John, 514. 

Poi to Rico, Map XVI. He ; acquisition 
from Spain, 598-599 ; civil government 
established, 600. 

Portsmouth, R. I., 45; Map, p. 44. 

Portugal, early enterprise in maritime ex- 
ploration, 3 ; first voyage round Africa, 
to India, 7 ; progress blighted by Spanish 
rule, 12-13. 

Pory, John, 116. 

Postal system, early colonial, 130. 

Pottawotomie Creek, 464 ; Map XIV. He. 

Prescott, Col. William, 200. 

Presidency, Act to prevent a vacancy in 
the, 585. 

Presidential Elections, Appendix C. 

Presque Isle, 140. 150, 344; 3Iap VI. Ac, 
and p. 141, Fc. 

Press, the. See Printing and Newspa- 
pers. 

Pretender, the, 130. 

Prince, Thomas, 191. 

Princeton, battle of (with map), 211-2H. 

Pring, Martin, 28. 

Printing, the first process in the colonies, 
116. 

Privateers, American, in the War of 1812, 
342, 344, 352 ; Confederate, 1861-65, 493- 

494- 

Progress and Change, Epochs of, 609-623. 

Prohibition party, 581, 595. 

Proprietary provinces : Maryland, 69 ; the 
Carolinas, 84 ; New York, 86; New Jer- 
sey, 87 ; Pennsylvania, 96-98 ; changed 
to royal provinces : New York (by Duke 
of York becoming king), loi ; Pennsyl- 
vania (temporarily), 121; New Jersey, 
121; Maryland (temporarily), 122-123; 
the Carolinas, 133. 

Protective policy, industrial, applied by 
England to the colonies, 128, 132-133 ; 
state protective tariffs under the Articles 
of Confederation, 253; first national 
tariff, 272; Hamilt(yirs proposals, 280; 
tariff of 1816, 354^55; tariff of 1824, — 
Clay's American system, 375-376 ; reac- 
tion against the protective policy in the 
south, 382; upheld by the National Re- 
publican party, 382-383 ; Massachusetts 
accepts protective policy, — the " tariff of 
abominations" (1828), 384; doctrine fa- 
vored by President Jack^n, 397 ; nulli- 
fication of tariff laws proposed in South 
Carolina, 397-398 ; tariff act of 1832, 401 ; 
nullifying ordinance of South Carolina, — 
the "compromise tariff" of 1832, 402- 
404 ; tariff of 1842, 430 ; Walker tariff, 
18461, 444 ; reciprocity tflaty witli Canada, 
460; Morrill tariff, 1S60, 488; Civil War 
taTtffs, 500, 510; tariff message of Presi- 
dent Cleveland, 18^7, — the Mills Bill, 
586; the McKinley tariff, 588-580; the 
Wilson tariff, 593 ; the Dingley tariff, 595 ; 
stimulation of manufactures in recent 
years, 613-615. 

Providence, R. I., Map V. Bd ; the 
founding, 43-44 ; colony established by 
royal patent, 45 ; organization, 67-68 ; 



religious liberty established, 68 ; char- 
tered with Rhode Island, 83-84. See 
Rhode Island. 

Puebla, Mexico, Map, p. 441. 

Pueblo tribes, irrigation by, 612. 

Pueblos of the Zunis, n, 19. 

Pulaski, Count Casimir, 225. 

Pulaski, Fort, 506. 

Puritanism liberalized, 366. 

Puritans, origin, 14 ; struggle in England 
with King Charles I., 38; extensive emi- 
gration to New England, 38-40 ; religious 
exclusiveness in Massachusetts, 41 ; de- 
crease of immigration to New England, 
46 ; expulsion from Virginia and settle- 
ment in Maryland, 73 ; conduct in Mary- 
land, 54. 

Putnam, Gen. Israel, 196, 199. 

Putnam, Gen. Rufus, 264. 

*' Quaker guns," 508. 

Quakers (Friends), persecution in Massa- 
chusetts, 52-53 ; purchase of West Jer- 
sey, 95-96 ; Williani Penn and Pennsyl- 
vania, 96-99 ; early opposition to slavery, 
114, 192; and to military expenditure, 
142 ; memorials against slavery, 275. 

Quebec, Rlap V. Bb ; city founded by 
Champlain, 26; colonial English expe- 
dition against, 124 ; capture by Wolfe 
(with plan), 148-149 ; name given to east- 
ern Canada, and English government 
organized, 163; enlargement of the j^ro- 
vince, — the Quebec Act, 175 ; addressed 
by the Continental Congress, 177 ; un- 
successful attack on the city by Arnold 
and Montgomery, 202-203. 

"Queen Anne's War" (with map), 124- 
126. 

Queenston Heights, battle of (with map), 
341-342. 

Quincy, Josiah, 336. 

Railways, beginnings, 412; development 
in the middle of the century, 456 ; ex- 
cessive building, 1868-73, 571 ; In- 
ter-State Conmierce Commission, 586; 
epochs of the railway in the development 
of the country, 610-61 1, 613. 

Raisin River, battle of, 343 ; Map, p. 345. 

Raleigh, Sir Walter, 15. 

Rambouillet, decree of, 334. 

Randolph, Edmund, 100. 

Randolph, John, 330, 339. 

Randolph, Peyton, 176. 190, 198, 257. 

Rapidan River, Map XII. Bf. 

Reciprocity treaty with Canada, 460. 

Reconstruction, President Lincoln's plan, 
536-539 ; last statement of his views, 547- 
548; President Johnson's measures, 561- 
562 ; Congressional action, — military 
reconstruction act, 562-565 ; working of 
the measures of Congress, 565-566, 568 ; 
withdrawal of Federal forces by Presi- 
dent Hayes, 575-576. 

Redemptioners, 76. 

Red River, 369 ; Map XI. Db. 

Reeder, Andrew H., 464. 



71 



INDEX. 



Regicides, S3. 

Regulators, the Carolina, 171. 

Religious Liberty. See Liberty, religious. 

Removals from office. See Spoils System, 
and Civil Service Reform. 

Representation, taxation without. See 
Taxation. 

Representation, virtual, the theory' of, 164. 

Representative government, established in 
MaryLind, 34, 68 ; in Virginia, 62 ; in 
Plymouth Colony, 65 ; in Massachusetts 
Bay Colony, t>6 ; English origin in all the 
colonies. 69-70 ; older Germanic origin, 
78 ; in New Jersey, 87 ; in New York, 
96 ; in Pennsylvania, 97-99 ; in the Union, 
259-261. 

Representatives, House of, proportionate 
representation and slave representation, 
260-261 ; loss of ground by slaveholding 
States, 371. 

Republican party (Anti-Slavery>, its rise, 
462; election of Speaker Banks, 464; 
nomination of Fremont for President, 
465-466 ; conviction and purpose stated 
by Lincoln and Seward, 472-473 ; election 
of Abraham Lincoln, President, 475- 
476 ; in control ol Congress, 4SS ; re- 
election of Lincoln, 543-544 ; rupture 
with President Johnson, 565-566 ; elec- 
tion of Grant, 56S ; reelection of Grant, 
568-569 ; election of Hayes, 574-575 ; 
election of Garfield, 5S1 ; defeat in 1S84, 
583 ; election of Harrison, 5S7-5SS ; de- 
feat in iS^2, 5go; election of AIcKinley. 
594-595 ; reelection of McKinley, 601. 

Republican party (Democratic, 1793-1S25), 
name assumed by the -Anti- Federalists, 
2S0 : nullifying doctrines in Kentucky 
and Virginia resolutions, 294-2 ■)5; elec- 
tion of Jefferson. President, 296 ; incon- 
sistency on the Louisiana question, 313- 
314 ; unopposed in the period of Monroe, 
366. 374-375 i beginning of division, 379 : 
division complete, forming the Demo- 
cratic party and the National Republican 
party, 3S2-3S3. 

Resaca de la Palma, battle of, 439 ; Ma/>, 
p. 440. 

Resumption of specie payments. See 
Specie payments. 

Revere, Paul, 194. 

Revolution, the American, 194-234. 

Revolution, the English, of 1642-49, 49- 
50, So-Si ; of 16SS, 102, loS. 

Revolution, the French, 2S4-2S5. 

Rhett, R. Barnwell, 445, 4^1. 

Rhode Island, J/i/ T. Bd. : first settle- 
ments and naming (with mapt, 43-45 : 
self-organization of government, 67-6S, 
69; roy-iil charters obtained, 8^-84 ; under 
Andros, 102 ; population, industries, and 
trade at the end of 17th century, 10S-113 ; 
slavery and bond service, 113-114; edu- 
cation and literature, 11 4- 116; engage- 
ment in the slave trade, 193; declares 
for independence, 205-206 ; state govern- 
ment formed, 207 : recall of delegates 
from the Continental Congress, 255 ; re- 



fusal to send delegates to the Federal Con- 
stitutional Convention, 25S ; tardy ratifi- 
cation of the Constitution, 264, 276 ; 
Dorr rebellion, 430. 

Rich Mountain, battle of, 500; Mafi, p. 499, 
Db. 

Richmond, Dean, 450. 

Richmond, Va., Map XII. Ch ; capital 
of the southern Confederacy, 511 : pe- 
ninsular campaign against, 511-512, 513- 
514; Grant's campaign against, 539-540, 
541 ; Confederate evacuation, — destruc- 
tive fire, — visited by President Lincoln, 
547- 

Rio Grande River, 371 ; Map XI. Cc. 

Roanoke Island, 15, 506; Map II. He, 
and p. 505. 

Rochambeau, Count de, 22S-229. 

Rockingham, Marquis of, 166, 233. 

Roman Catholic Church. French missions 
to the Indians, 2S; refuge in Maryland 
from English persecution, 33-34; experi- 
ence in Maryland, 53-54, 122-123. 

Roosevelt, Theodore, on Commodore 
Macdonough, 34S ; Vice-President, be- 
comes President, 602 ; action relative to 
coal strike, 61 8. 

Rosecrans, Gen. William S., commanding 
in West Virginia, 503 : in command of 
the Army of the Cumberland, 530-531, 
535; succeeded by Thomas, 536. 

Rotation in office, 39;. 

Ro>*al provinces, or Crown colonies, Vir- 
ginia subjected to the direct authority of 
the king, 33 ; the proprietor of New York 
becomes king, loi ; Massachusetts loses 
its charter and becomes a royal province, 
100-102, 119-120; New Jersey, 121; 
Pennsyl\-ania (temporarily), 121 ; Mary- 
land (temporarily). 122-123; the Caroli- 
nas, 133; Georgia, 134. 

Rumsev. Tames, 308. 

Rush. Richard, 385. 

Russell. Jonathan, 351. 

Russia, settlement of American boundary, 
436 ; sale of Alaska, 567. 

Rutledge, Edward, 176. 

Rutledge, John, 176, 217, 25S. 

Rj'swick, Treaty of, 124. 

Sabine River, 369 ; Map XI. Db. 

Sackett's Harbor, 346 ; Map IX. Ec. 

Saco. Me., 125; Slaf> I'. Be. 

Sacramento, 443 ; .^Tap XI. Ab. 

Sacs and Fo.xes, 397 : Map, p. 141. 

St. Clair, Gen. Arthur, 265, 281. 

St. Lawrence Gulf and River, discovery by 
Cartier, 10 ; Map II. 

St. LawTence river and lake sy-stem. Map 
I. ; historical influence, 23 ; French ex- 
ploration and occupation, 116-318, 140; 
English conquest, 140-150. See also 
Lakes, Basin of the Great. 

St. Leger, Col. Barn.-, 214. 

St. Louis, Map XIII. Be ; Secessionists 
baffled (1S61), 405-496; labor riots, 587. 

St. Marks, 160; Map XI. Eb. 

St. Mary's,\Md., 34; Map VII. Db. 



/ - 



INDEX. 



Salem, Mass., Map V. Bd ; the found- 
ing, 39; witchcraft madness, i2q. 
Samoset, 37. 

Sampson, Admiral William T., 59S. 
San Antonio, battle of (with map), 441. 
Sandusky, t). ; Map, p. 345. 
Sandys, Sir Edwin, 62. 
Sandys, George, 1 16. 

Sanitary Commission, United States, 560. 
San Jacinto, battle of, ^i\\ Map XI. Dc. 
San Juan Hill, battle of (with map), 597- 

59S. 

Santa Anna, 410-411, 440-441. 

Santa F^, 440. 

Santiago de Cuba, military and naval op- 
erations at (with map), 597-59S. 

Saratoga, 139, 215; Map \'I. Dc, and p. 
213. 

Savage Station, battle of, 514; Map XII. 
Dh. 

Savannah, Map VII Be, and p. 225, Ah ; 
founded, 134; taken by the British, — 
unsuccessful American siege, 224; re- 
duction of Fort Pulaski in the Civil 
War, 506 ; reached by General Sherman, 

543- 
Savannah River, n ; Map II. Gc. 

Say and Sele, Lord, 42. 

Saybrook, 42; Map V. Ad. 

" Scalawags," 565. 

Schenectady, 124 ; Mat> VI . Dc, and p. 

125- 

Schley, Admiral Winfield S., 598. 

Schofield, Gen. John M., 543. 

Schools. See Education. 

Schurz, Carl, on Lincoln's second inaugu- 
ral, 546. 

Schuyler, Gen. Philip, 199, 215. 

Scientific discovery, 615 

Scotch-Irish, the, M5-136, 230, 495. 

Scott, Gen. Winfield, in battle of Queens- 
ton Heights, 342 ; at Lundy's Lane, 
347 ; in the Mexican War, 440-442 ; 
nominated for President and defeated 
(1852), 458-459; retirement from general 
command of the army, 503. 

Scrooby Independents, 36. 

Seal-fishery dispute, 584-585. 

Search and impressment, British, 287-288, 
289, 318, 322-323; cause of war, 340; 
unmentioned in treaty of peace, 352. 

Secession, threats and suspected inten- 
tions of New England Federalists, in 
1803-4, 314, 315-316; in 181 1, 336; in 
1S12-15, 350-351; threats from the 
slaveliolding interest, in 1820, 372-374; 
in 1832, 402 ; in 1850, 452-454 ; in 1856, 
466; in i860, 474; declared secession 
of seven States, December, 1S60- Feb- 
ruary, 1S61, 484-486; further secession 
movement in four States, April-May, 
1861, 494-495. 

Second war with England, 339-353. 

Secret societies, disloyal, 553. 

Sectionalism, the northern and southern 
division, — slavery and other causes, 
309; effects of sectional differences in 
interest, 323, 338 ; even balance in num- 



ber of free and slave States, 371. See 
Slavery. 

Sedition Act, 293-294. 

Seminole Indian wars, 368-369, 396-397 ; 
Map XI. Ec. 

Senate, state representation in the, 259- 
260 ; balance maintained between free 
and slave States, 371. 

Senecas, Map VI . Be. See Iroquois. 

Separatists. See Independents. 

Seven cities of Cibola, 11. 

Seven Days' battles, 514. 

Seven Pines, battle of, 513 ; Map XII. 
Dh. 

Seven Years' War, 146-150. 

Seward, William H., opposes the Com- 
promise of 1850, 453 ; allusion to a 
"higher law," 455 ; enters the Republi- 
can party, 463 ; statement of the " irre- 
pressible conflict," 472-473 ; Secretary of 
State under President Lincoln, 490 ; ad- 
vice concerning emancipation proclama- 
tion, 527; at peace conference with Vice- 
President Stephens, 546 ; attempt to mur- 
der, 549-550; purchase of Alaska, 567. 

Seymour, Horatio, 568. 

Shackamaxon, 99. 

Shafter, Gen. William R., 597-598. 

Shaw, Col. Robert G., 534. 

Shelburne, Earl of, 233-234. 

Shenandoah Valley, 135, 501, 512, 541-542; 
Map XII. Bd. 

Sheridan, Gen. Philip H., in battle of 
Stone River, 531 ; commanding cavalry 
of the Army of the Potomac, 539 ; cam- 
paign in the Shenandoah, 541-542 ; at 
Five Forks, 547. 

Sherman, John, 577. 

Sherman, Roger, 176. 

Shennan, Gen. William T., in operations 
against Vicksburg, 531, 533; command- 
ing the Army of the Tennessee, — at 
Chattanooga, 536 ; succeeds Grant in 
general western command, — plan of 
campaign, — forces, 539-540; movement 
on Atlanta, 540-541 : march to the sea 
(with map), 542-543; northward move- 
ment frotn Savannah (with map), 544- 
545 ; great review of army, 551. 

Sherman Act, 589-590, 591-592. 

Shiloh, battle of, 506, 513, ^lap XIII. Cf. 

Shipping, American early, 109-113. 

Shires, 71. 

Shirley, Governor William, 145, 146. 

Shoshonean tribes, 21 ; Map II. Dc. 

Sigel, Gen. Franz, 502, 539, 541. 

Silver question, its opening, — the Bland 
Act, 576-577 ; the .Sherman Act, 589-590; 
monetary crisis produced by the Sherman 
Act, 591-592 ; partial repeal of Sherman 
Act, 592 ; the silver question in the elec- 
tion of 1896, 594-595 ; monetary commis- 
sion to Europe, 595; the standard "dol- 
lar" defined finally in gold, 596; silver 
question in the election of 1900, 601. 

Sioux, — Siouan tribes, 21, 570; Alap II. 
Fb, and XI. Ca. 

Sitting Bull, 570. 



73 



INDEX. 



Six Nations, the, 130. See Iroquois. 
Slavery, physical influences favoring, 24; 
beginnings in tiie colonies, 75; estab- 
lished in the Carolinas, 85 ; as existing 
in the colonies at end of 17th century, 
113-114; forced by English interests, 
113; early Quaker opposition, 114; fu- 
tile prohibition in Georgia, 134; class 
distinctions caused by, 1S8; in the States 
when they became independent, 191- 
192 ; fostered in the colonies and forced 
on them by the English government, 
192-193 ; the slave trade of England and 
New England, 192-193; compromises of 
the Constitution on slavery questions, 
260-262; exclusion from the Northwest 
Territory by ordinance of 1787, 264-265; 
proposal to tax importation of slaves, 
272 ; action of Congress on first abolition 
memorials, 275-276 ; slaves north and 
south in 1800, 306 ; effects of the cotton- 
gin, 308-309; abolition of the African 
slave trade, 320; opening of the question 
of slavery extension in the Territories, 
371-372; the Missouri Compromise, 372- 
374 ; cause of reaction in the south to- 
ward extreme doctrines of State Rights 
and strict constructions of the Constitu- 
tion, 381-382 ; beginning of aggressive 
anti-slavery agitation, — the abolitionists, 
405-406; alarm and anger in the south, 
— differing effects in the north, 406-407 ; 
suppression in Congress of the right of 
petition, — attempts to exclude anti- 
slavery literature from the mails, 408- 
410 ; Calhoun as the leader of agitation, 
4To; slavery cairied into Texas, — the 
Texas question opened, 410-411 ; expan- 
sion of slavery by annexation of Texas, 
431-434 ; the right of petition established, 
435; intensifying of the question of 
slavery in the Territories by the con- 
quests from Mexico and the Oregon 
treaty, — the " Wilmot Proviso," 444- 
445 ; new theory of slaveholding rights, 
445-446 ; the question in the election of 
1848, 450-451 ; pro-slavery and anti- 
slavery demands, and the Compromise 
of 1850, 451-454; the Fugitive Slave 
Law, 454-456: "personal liberty laws " 
and the " Underground Railway,"' 455- 
456; anti-slavery apathy in 1852, 458- 
45q; repeal of the Missouri Compromise 
by the Kansas-Nebraska act, 460-462 ; 
rise of the Republican party, 462 ; the 
strife for Kansas, 463-464; Dred Scott 
decision, 466-467 ; the Lecompton fraud 
in Kansas and its defeat, 468-470; Lin- 
coln and Douglas debate, 470-471 ; fur- 
ther claim of a slaveholding right to pro- 
tection in the Territories, 472; Lincoln 
and Seward's statements of the issue con- 
cerning slavery, — purpose of the Repub- 
lican party, 472-473 ". John Brown's 
attempt at Harper's Ferry, 473-474 ; 
election of Abraham Lincoln, 475-476 ; 
slavery a source of military strength in 
the Civil War, 498 ; slaves declared con- 



traband of war, 498-499 ; act to confis- 
cate property for insurrectionary purposes, 
500; Fremont's proclamation of emanci- 
pation, 502-503 ; compensated emanci- 
pation offered and urged, 510; rendition 
of fugitive slaves by the army forbidden, 
— compensated emancipation in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia, 511; principles that 
governed President Lincoln's dealing 
with slavery, 525-526 ; his proclamation 
of emancipation prepared, 526-527; 
emancipation proclaimed, 528 ; slavery 
prohibited by the Thirteenth Amend- 
ment, 545 ; abolished by state action in 
Maryland, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisi- 
ana, and Tennessee, 545 (footnote). 

Slemmer, Lieut., 487. 

Sloat, Commodore John D., 440. 

Sloughter, Col., 120. 

Smith, Caleb B., 490. 

Smith, Capt. John, in Virginia, 30-31; 
naming and describing of ]New England, 
^5; writings, 116; Map of New England, 
^Map III. 

Smith, Joseph, 443. 

Smith, William, 116, 191. 

Social development, early colonial, 73- 
76; later colonial, 188-1S9 ; after the 
second war with England, 362-364 ; since 
the Civil War, 617-619. 

Sonora, 19 ; Map II. Dc. 

Sons of Liberty, 165-166. 

Soto, Fernando de, expedition of, 11. 

Soule, Pierre, 460. 

South America, discovery by Columbus, 
6; Spanish American revolutions, 335, 

376-377- 
South Carolina, early settlements, 84-85 ; 
proprietary government, 85 ; population, 
industries, and trade at end of 17th cen- 
tury, 108-113, 123; slavery and inden- 
tured servitude, 113-114; rice cultivation, 
129 ; proprietary government overthrown, 
— becomes a royal province, 133 ; Scotch- 
Irish settlements, 136 ; social state at the 
end of the colonial period, 188 ; first hos- 
tilities with the royal government, 197 ; 
organization of a state government, 205 ; 
state government formed, 207 ; subjuga- 
tion by British forces, 224-226, 227; de- 
liverance by Greene, 231-232 ; cession of 
land claims to the Confederation, 249- 
250; nullification movement, 1828-32, 
397-399, 401, 402, 404; ordinance of se- 
cession, 1S60, 484, 486; emancipation 
proclaimed, 528; restored to the Union, 
564-565 ; disputed electoral returns, 1876, 
574;" withdrawal of Federal military au- 
thoritv, 57S- 

South Dakota, included in Nebraska Ter- 
ritory, 461; in Dakota Territory, 488; 
admitted to the Union, 588. 

South Mountain, battle of, 528; Map XII ■ 
Cc. 

" South Sea,'" early notion of the, 9-10. 

Spain, claim to countries discovered by 

Columbus. 5; papal grant, 5 ; explora- 

1 tions and conquests in America, 9-11; 



74 



INDEX. 



decay of the nation, 12-13; war with 
England, 1739, 137-139; acquisition of 
Louisiana and New Orleans from France, 
and cession of Florida to England, 150; 
alliance with France against England, 
219 ; treaty with United States, freeing 
the navigation of the Mississippi, 290; 
cession of Louisiana to France, 312 ; re- 
volutions in American colonies, — Ameri- 
can occupation of West Florida, 335, 336; 
sale of Florida to the United States, and 
definition of western boundaries, 369 ; re- 
volution in Spain and in Spanish-Ameri- 
can provinces (1820-23), 376 ; revolt in 
Cuba, — war with the United States, 596- 
599 ; cession of territory, 599. 

Spanish-American War, 596-599. 

Specie circular, President Jackson's, 413- 
414, 416. 

Specie payments, suspended, 1S37, 416; 
resumed, 1838, 418; suspended, i86i, 
509-510; preparation to resume, 572 ; op- 
position to resumption, 573 ; resumption 
accomplished, 577. 

"Spoils System," origin in state politics, 
— introduction in the national public 
service, 394-395; vices intensified, 570- 
571 ; beginning of reform, 571-572 ; cause 
of the murder of President Garfield, 582; 
checked by President Cleveland, 583. 

Spotswood, Alexander, 134-135. 

Spottsylvania Court House, battle of, 540; 
Map XII. Cf., 

Springfield, Mass., 46; Map V. Ad. 

" Squatter sovereignty," 461, 467, 471. 

" Stalwarts,'" 581. 

Stamp Act, 164-167. 

Standard of value, the question, 576-577, 
589. 

Stantofrj Edwin M., 487, 490, 566. 

Stanwix, Fort, 214; Map, p. 145. 

Star of the West fired on at Charleston, 488. 

Star Spangled Banner, the song of the, 
349-350. 

Stark, John, 196, 214. 

State Rights and State Sovereignty, the 
contention for, concession to it in the 
Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, 
273 ; early issue between parties, 277-278, 
283-284 ; state rights reaction in the 
south, 381-382 ; nullification as a state 
right, 294-295, 397-398 ; secession as a 
state right, 494-495. 

State Sovereignty. See State Rights. 

Staten Island, Map, p. 209. 

States, list of, with dates of admission to 
the Union, etc.. Appendix B. 

Statistics of the Civil War, 550-552. 

Steam-engines, number in the country in 
1803, 307-308; development and effects, 
615-616. 

Steam locomotion. See Railways. 

Steam navigation, beginnings, 308 ; early 
development on American lakes and 
rivers, 364, 412 ; supplanting sails on the 
ocean, 456. 

Steel manufacture, development and cheap- 
ening, 613-614. 



Stephens, Alexander H., 484, 486, 489, 546. 

Steuben, Baron Friedrich, 218-219, 232. 

Stillwater, battles near, 215 ; Map, p. 213. 

Stith, William, 191. 

Stockton, Commodore Robert F., 440. 

Stone, William, 53-54. 

Stone River, battle of, 53 1 ; Map XIII. 
Ee. 

Stony Creek, battle of, 345. 

Stony Point, 224; Map, p. 209. 

Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 456. 

Strachey, William, 116. 

Strict constructionists, 278, 280, 314, 354, 
381-382. 

Stuyvesant, Peter, 49, 87. 

Sub-treasury system, 417. 

Suffolk County resolutions, 177. 

Suffrage, political. See Elective franchise. 

Sugar Act, 162. 

Sullivan, Gen. John, 199, 221-223. 

Sullivan's Island, 208; Map, p. 225, Bh. 

Sumner, Charles, on the effects of the Kan- 
sas-Nebraska Act, 463 ; assaulted by 
Preston Brooks, 465. 

Sumter, Thomas, 227. 

Sumter, Fort, held by Major Anderson, 
487, 488; attacked and taken by the Con- 
federates, 490-491 ; the flag restored, 548 ; 
Map, p. 534. 

Supreme Court, Chief Justice Jay, 273 ; 
Chief Justice Marshall, 296 ; important 
early decisions, 368 ; Chief Justice Taney, 
— Dred Scott decision, 466-467 ; Chief 
Justice Chase, 544 ; decisions on the Legal 
Tender Act, 510; decision that the seceded 
States were never out of the Union, 548 
(foot-note) ; decision concerning citizen- 
ship, national and state, 563 (foot-note); 
decision against constitutionality of the 
income tax, 593. 

Surplus revenue, distribution of, 413-414. 

Surratt, Mrs. Mary E., 550. 

Suspension of specie payments. See Specie 
payments. 

Swedish settlements, 48. 

Taft, William H., 599-600. 

Talleyrand-Perigord, Prince, 292-293. 

Tallmadge's amendment, 372. 

Tammany Society, 386. 

Tampico, 11; Ma-pll. Fd. 

Taney, Roger B., Attorney-General under 
President Jackson, 399; transferred to 
Treasury Department, — removal of de- 
posits from the United States Bank, 405 ; 
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, — 
Dred Scott decision, 467; death, 544. 

Tariffs. See Protective Policy, Industrial. 

Tarleton, Col. Sir Banastre, 227, 231. 

Taxation without representation, the que.s- 
tion of, its rise, 127, 131-132: English 
decision to tax colonies, 144 ; English 
theory of virtual representation, 164 ; de- 
claration of Continental Congress, 177. 

Taylor, Gen. Zachary, in the Mexican War, 
438-439, 440-441 ; elected President, 
4S0-451 ) views of policy on the slavery 
question, 451, 453 ; death, 453. 



75 



INDEX. 



Tea, tlie tax on, 167, 170, 173-174. 

Tea Party, the Koston, 173-174. 

Tecumseh, 337, 341, 345. 

Telegraph, electric, beginnings, 433 ; At- 
lantic cable, 566. 

Tennessee, Scotch-Irish settlements, 136; 
government framed under the " Articles 
of the Watauga Association," 171-172; 
admission to the Union, 290; detachment 
in interest from the east, 307; Burr's 
conspiracy, 316-318; secession declared, 
494; secession resisted in East Ten- 
nessee, 495 ; slavery- abolished by stale 
action, 545 (foot-note); restored to the 
Union, 563. 

Tenure of Office Act, 564, 566, 585. 

Terry, Gen. Alfred H., 544. 

Texas, should have been included in the 
Louisiana Purchase, 315; overthrow of 
Mexican authority, — achievement of in- 
dependence, 410-411; annexation pro- 
posals declined by President Van Buren, 
41S; President Tyler's annexation treaty 
rejected by the Senate, 431-432 ; the 
Texas question in the presidential elec- 
tion (1S40), 433-434; annexation accom- 
plished, 434 ; cause of war with Mexico, 
437-438; Mexican claim relinquished, 
442 ; secession declared, 4S6 ; emancipa- 
tion proclaimed, 528 ; restored to the 
Union, 564-565. 

Thames, battle of the (with map), 345. 

Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitu- 
tion, 545. 

Thomas, Gen. George H., victory at Mill 
Spring, 507 ; in battle of Stone River, 
531; at Chickamauga. 535; commanding 
army of the Cumberland, 536 ; at Nash- 
ville, 543. 

Ticonderoga, Fort, JAi/ / '/. Dc : built by 
the French and called Fort Carillon, 146 ; 
British repulse at, 148; French evacua- 
tion, 149-150; capture by Ethan Allen, 
197-19S: given up to Burgoyne, 213. 

Tilden, Samuel J., in the "Barnburner" 
wing of the Democratic party, 450 ; 
Democratic nominee for President. 574. 

Tippecanoe, battle of, 337 ; Map IX. Be. 

Tobacco culture, beginnings in Virgmia, 
31-32; social and economic effects, 73- 
74, 110; affected by the Navigation Acts, 
80, II 1-112. 

Toledo, 610; ^^ap XV. Jb. 

Toleration, religious. See Liberty, reli- 
gious. 

Topeka, 469 ; Map XIV. He. 

Tories, origin of the name, 100 (foot-note) ; 
in the colonies, 1S9; during the Revolu- 
tion, 221-223, 227, 230-231 ; treatment 
after the war, 234-235, 236. 

Toronto, 345 ; Mix}> IX. Dc. 

Toseanelli, Paolo del Pozzo, 2. 

Town-meetinss, New England, 70-72. 

Townshend, Charles, and the " Town- 
shend Acts," 162, 167-168. 

Trent affair. ^05. 

Trenton, battle of (with map), 211. ^ 

Trinidad, 6; Map II. le. 



Tripoli, war with (with map), 310-31 1, 31S. 

Trist, Mr. 442. 

Trusts, 617-618. 

Tun-scipes and tun-moots, early English, 

71- 
Turner, Nat, insurrection, 407. 
Tuscaroras, driven from the Carolinas, 130; 

Map VII. Ac. 
Tuscumbia, 507; Map XIII. Df. 
"Tweed Ring," 571, 574. 
Twiller, Wouter Van, 49. 
Tyler, John, elected Vice-President, 419- 

420; becomes President, 42S ; rupture 

with the Whigs, 42S-430 ; action on the 

Texas question, 431-432,434. 

" Uncle Tom's Cabin," 456. 

" Underground Railway," 455-456. 

L'nion, colonial, early desires for, 126-127; 
plans of Franklin and the Board of 
Trade, 143-144. 

United Colonies of New England, 46. 

United .States, the frigate, built, 293 ; cap- 
ture of the Macedonia, 342. 

United States Bank, the first, 276-278 ; its 
dissolution, 336-337; the second, 367; 
warning of President Jackson's hostility, 
395-396 ; the bank question in the presi- 
dential canvass, — recharter vetoed by 
the President, 400-402 : government de- 
posits removed by President Jackson, 
404-405 ; recharter by Pennsylvania, — 
failure, 405 ; bill for a third charter ve- 
toed by President Tyler, 429. 

United States Bureau of Education, 620. 

United .States Christian Commission, 560. 

United States Sanitary- Commission, 560. 

Lapland, 98. 

Upshur, Abel P., 432. 

Utah, acquisition by the United States, 
442 ; occupation by the Mormons. 442- 
443 ; called the " State of Deseret," 451 ; 
territorial organization, 454 ; Mormon 
rebellion, 468 ; irrigation of arid lands, 
612. 

Utes. 21 : Map XII. Dc. 

Utrecht, Treaty of, 126, 192. 

Vaca, Cabeza de, 11. 

Valley Forge, 217-219 ; Map, p. 211. Ah. 

Van Buren. Martin, Secretary of State un- 
der President Jackson, 394, 309 ; elected 
Vice-President, 402; elected President, 
414 ; wise and courageous dealing with 
the business crisis of 1S37, with the 
Texas question, and with the Canadian 
rebellion, 416-419; defeat in election of 
1S40, 419-420; opposes annexation of 
Texas and loses Democratic nomination 
for the presidency, 432, 433; nominated 
for President by the Free Soil party, 
4:0-451; return to Democratic party, 
458. 

Van Rensselaer, Gen. Solomon, 341. 

Van Rensselaer estate, 75. 

Vane, Sir Harr^-, 45. 

Venango, Fort, 140, 150; Map VI. Ad, 
and p. 141. 



76 



INDEX. 



Venezuela controversy with Great Britain, 

593-594- 

Vera Cruz, 440; Map, p. 441. 

Veragua, 6 ; Map II. Gf. 

Vergennes, Count de, 234. 

Vermont, action in the War of Independ- 
ence, 197-198; early history, — admis- 
sion to the Union, 279. 

Verrazano, voyage of, 10. 

Vespucius, Americus, voyages to America 
and name given to the continents, 8. 

Vicksburg, 513, 531, 533; Map XIII. Bh. 

Vincennes, 223; Map, p. 141. 

Virginia, the name, and its first applica- 
tion, 15 ; grants to Virginia Company and 
London Company, 2S-30; grounds of 
claim to northwestern territory (with map), 
29-30 ; Jamestown colony, 30-33 {Map, 
p. 31); London Company overthrown, 
33 ; the colony during the English civil 
war, commonwealth and protectorate, 53 ; 
its early political development, 62-63, 69; 
local government, — the parish and the 
county, 70-72 ; social structure and char- 
acter, 73-74 ; introduction of slavery and 
indentured servitude, 75 ; under Charles 
IL and Governor Berkeley, 80-81, 89-90; 
Bacon's rebellion, 90-92 ; population and 
industries at end of 17th century, io8- 
113; slavery and indentured servitude, 
113-114; education and literature, 115- 
116 ; revolution of 1688, 123 ; assertion to 
the French of northwestern claims, 140- 
141 ; declarations against the Townshend 
acts and non-importation measures, 169- 
170; social state at the end of the colonial 
period, 188 ; conflicts with Governor 
Dunmore, 197, 203-204 ; declaration of 
rights, 206; state government formed, 
207 ; theatre of the final campaign of the 
War of Independence, 232-233 ; cession 
of land claims to the Confederation, 249- 
250; action leading to the Federal Consti- 
tutional Convention, 256-257; nullifying 
resolutions, 1798, 294-295 ; effects of the 
cotton-gin on slavery, 308-309 ; secession 
declared, 494 ; secession resisted in West 
Virginia, 495 ; organization of a loyal 
government, and final separation of West 
Virginia, 500; emancipation proclaimed, 
528; restored to the Union, 564-565. 

Virginia Company, its charter and its two 
branches, 28-29. 

Wagner, Fort (with map), 534. 

Walker, Robert J., Secretary of the Treas- 

ury. 435 i author of tariff of 1846, 444 ; 

governor of Kansas, 464, 468-469. 
Walker, William, filibustering schemes, 

460. 
Walpole, Sir Robert, his colonial policy, 

131-132; loss of power, 137. 
Wampanoags, or Pokanokets, 37, 92-93 ; 

Map K. Bd. 
Wampum, 51-52. 
War for the Union, 490-551. 
War of 1812-15, 339-353 ; new spirit in the 

country after the war, 362-366. 



War of Independence, 194-234. 
War of the Austrian Succession, 138. 
War of the League of .Augsburg, 123. 
War of the Spanish Succession, 124. 
War with Barbary States, 310-3 11, 318, 

353- 

War with Mexico, 437-442. 

War with Spain, 596-599. 

War Democrats, 529-530. 

" War Hawks," 338-339- 

Ward, General Artemas, 196, 199. 

Ward, Nathaniel, 115. 

Warren, Dr. Joseph, leadership in Boston, 
173. 177; chairman of Massachusetts 
"Committee of Safety," 179; his writ- 
ings, 190 ; his vigilance, 194 ; his death at 
Bunker Hill, 202. 

Warwick, R. I., 45 ; Map, p. 44. 

Washington, Booker T., 621. 

Washington, Geofge, mission to French 
commander in western Pennsylvania, 
140-141 ; opening hostilities with the 
French, 141-142 ; on Braddock's staff, 
145 ; action in Virginia Assembly against 
the Townshend acts, 170; in the First Con- 
tinental Congress, 176 ; in Second Con- 
tinental Congress, — appointment as com- 
mander-in-chief of Continental Army, 
198-199 ; in command at Cambridge, 202- 
203, 204-205 ; defending New York and 
the Hudson (with map), 206, 208-209; 
hostile criticism, — retreat into Pennsyl- 
vania, 209-210; recrossing the Delaware, 
— returning into New Jersey (with map), 
210-212; intrigues to supplant, 215,217; 
at the Brandy wine and Germantown, 216; 
at Valley Forge, 217-219 ; at Monmouth, 
220; guarding the Hudson, 221; York- 
town campaign, 232-233 ; retirement from 
the army, 236-238; in the Constitutional 
Convention of 1787, 256-258; elected 
President of the United States, 265-266 ; 
inauguraticm, 271 ; reelection, 281 ; at- 
tempted non-partisan administration, 281 ; 
proclamation of neutrality between France 
and England, 285 ; acceptance of the Jay 
Treaty, 286-288, 288-290; retirement from 
the presidency, — farewell address, 290- 
291 ; appointed commander-in-chief, 293 ; 
death, 295. 

Washington, city of, founded, 275; condi- 
tion in 1800, 306; capture by the British 
(with map), 348-349; peril in April, 1861 
(with map), 493 ; slavery abolished, 511 ; 
panic after second battle of Bull Run, 
527; threatened by General Early, 541- 
542 ; great review of Union armies, 551. 

Washington, Fort, Map, p. 209. 

Washington, State of, admitted to the 
Union, 5X8. 

Washington, Treaty of (1871), 569-570. 

Watauga Association, Articles of the, 172. 

Watertown, Mass., 66; Map, p. 39. 

Waterways, importance in the development 
of the country, 364-365, 60Q-610. 

Wayne, Gen. Anthony, 224, 2S1. 

Wealth, increasing inequalities in, 617-618. 

Weaver, James B., 590. 



77 



INDEX. 



Webster, Parjel, first election to Congress, 
343; opposed to protective tariff (1816), 
355 ; also to that of 1S24, 376 ; change 
of attitude, 384 ; speech in reply to Sen- 
ator Hayne, 39S ; candidate for presi- 
dency (1836), 414; Secretary of State in 
Tyler's cabinet, 429-430; negotiation of 
Ashburton Treaty, 431 ; advocates the 
Compromise of 1S50, — seventh of March 
speech, 453-454 ; Secretary of State in 
Fillmore's cabinet, 454 ; Hulsemann let- 
ter, 457; death, 459. 

Welles, Gideon, 490. 

Wells, Me., 125; Map I'. Be. 

West. The. See Mississippi Valley, Ohio 
Valley ; Lakes, The Basin of the Great ; 
Northwest, The ; Louisiana Purchase ; 
and West, The Farther. 

West, The Farther, its development since 
the Civil War, 611-613. 

West Poijit, 229 ; JHa/>, 209. 

West Virginia, Scotch-Irish settlements, 
136 ; settlements beyond the mountains, 
139; fidelity to the Union (1861), 495 ; 
McClellan's campaign (with map), — or- 
ganization of a loyal state government, 
and final separation from the Old Do- 
minion, 499-500. 

Western forts, retention by the British of, 
235, 2S8, 2S9, 290. 

Western Reserve. 250. 

Wethersfield, Conn., 42,67; Map V. Ad. 

Weymouth, George, 28. 

Wheeling. 364 ; Map XI. Eb. 

Whig party. American formation, 414 ; 
election of Harrison and Tyler, 419-420 ; 
rupture with Tyler. 42S-430 ; defeat in 
1S44, 433-434 ■- election of Taylor and 
Fillmore^ 450-451; defeat in 1852, 458- 
459 ; absorption in the Republican and 
American parties, 461-463. 

Whig partv, English, origin of the name, 
100 ; attitude in England toward Ameri- 
can colonies, 127. 

" Whiskey Rebellion," 288. 

" Whiskev Ring," 571. 

White, Hugh L., 4'4- 

Whitman. Marcus, 436-437 (foot-note). 

Whitney. Eli, 308. 

Whittaker, Alexander, 1 16. 

Whittier, John G.. 36<;. 

"Wide Awake Clubs." 476- 

" Wild-cat ■' banks, 367. 412-413. 

Wilderness, battles of the, 540 ; Map XII. 
Cf. 

Wilkinson, Gen. James, 317. 346. 

William IIL (Prince of Orange) and Mary, 
accession to English throne; 102 ; leader 
in European resistance to Louis XIV., 

William and Mary College, 115. 

William Henry, Fort, 146, 147; Map VI. 

Dc. 
Williams, James, 227. 



Williams, Roger, founder of Providence, 
R. L. and apostle of religious liberty, 
43-45 ; writer, 115. 

Williamsburg, battle of. 511 ; Map XII. 
Eh. 

Wilmington, Del., Map, p. 47. 

Wilmington, N. C, 544-545 ; I^Iap, p. 225, 
Ef. 

" Wilmot Proviso," 444-445, 450, 452. 

Wilson, James. 257. 

Wilson tariff, 593. 

Wilson's Creek, battle of, 502 ; Map, p. 
503, Ab. 

Wmchester, Gen., 343. 

Winchester, battle of, 542 ; Map XII. 
Bd. 

Windsor, Conn.. 42, 67; I\Iap J'. Ad. 

Winslow. Edward, 115. 

Winthrop. John, first governor of the col- 
ony of Massachusetts Bay, 40 ; succes- 
sive elections, 45 (foot-note): death, 52; 
writings, 115. 

Winthrop, John, the younger, agent for the 
grantees of Connecticut, 42 ; governor of 
Connecticut, S2-83. 

Winthrop. Theodore, 49S. 

Wirt, William, 402. 

Wisconsin, under the ordinance of 1787, 
264-261; ; admitted to the Union, Appen- 
dix B. ■ 

Witchcraft, Salem, 129. 

Wolfe, Gen. James, 148-149. 

Wood. Gen. Leonard, 600. 

Wood, William, 115. 

Woodbury, Levi, 399. 

Wright, Silas. 417, 450. 

Writs of Assistance, 161- 162. 

Wyoming, massacre of, 222, 250 ; Alap VI. 
Cd. 

Wyoming. State of. acquisition of west- 
ern part from Mexico, 442 ; eastern part 
included in Nebraska Territory-. 461 ; 
admitted to the Union, 5S8. 

X. Y. Z. correspondence, 292-293. 

Yale College, 130. 

Yazoo River, 1 1 ; Map II. Fc. 

York. James, Duke of, receives grant of 
New Netherland, etc., 86; sale of New 
Jersey, 87 ; loss and recovery of pro- 
vince, 94-96 ; grant of Delaware territory' 
to William Penn, 98 ; becomes king, loi. 
See James IL 

York (Toronto), Canada, 345 ; Map IX. 
Dc. 

York, Pa., 216; Map VI. Ce. 

Yorktown, 71/7/, p. 225, Fa; surrender of 
Cornwallis, 232-233 ; siege in Civil War, 

5"- 
Young, Bngham, 443, 468. 

Zenger trial, 137. 

Zunis, pueblos of the, 11, 19. 



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